Texas House Passes Data Broker, Government AI Bills
The Texas House passed bills Wednesday on data brokers (SB-2121) and government use of AI (SB-1964). The Senate previously passed the bills but must vote again to concur with House changes before they can go to the governor.
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The House voted 131-2 for SB-2121, which would amend the definition of data broker in state law (Chapter 509) “to mean a business entity that collected, processed, or transferred, rather than whose principal source of revenue was derived from the collecting, processing, or transferring of, personal data that it did not collect directly from the individual linked or linkable to the data,” said a bill digest.
It would also say that Chapter 509 covers any data broker that has, over the last 12 months, derived “more than 50 percent of its revenue directly from processing or transferring personal data not collected by the data broker” or “revenue directly from processing or transferring the personal data of more than 50,000 individuals not collected by the data broker,” the digest said. The changes would take effect Sept. 1.
Texas House members voted 104-6 for SB-1964, which would require the Texas Department of Information Resources to write an AI “system code of ethics for state agency use and establish regulations and programs related to the use of AI systems by state agencies,” a bill digest said.