Age-Verification, Education Privacy Bills Advance in Massachussetts
A Massachusetts age-verification bill modeled on a New York law advanced to another legislative committee this week. On Thursday, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Advanced IT, the Internet and Cybersecurity favorably reported S-30 to Senate Ways and Means by a 6-0 vote.
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Also, the Joint Education Committee recently voted 6-0 to advance a student and teacher privacy measure (S-364) to Senate Ways and Means.
S-30 would ban social media platforms from using algorithms to deliver content to users younger than 18. Massachusetts Rep. William MacGregor (D) urged passage of that bill and his House companion (H-4229) at a July 10 hearing (see 2507100043).
Meanwhile, S-364 would set “data privacy, handling, and notification standards for providers of educational technology systems contracted with and utilized for K-12 school purposes, including the deidentification of data and deletion of data at the conclusion of the contract period at the latest,” said a summary by sponsor Sen. Barry Finegold (D).
“Educational tech providers would be barred from engaging in first-party targeted advertising to students or educators based on their data collected in the scope of the K-12 educational purpose or from developing profiles on users,” the summary said. “Sale of any information would be prohibited, except in the case of a data transfer to a national assessment provider with the student’s consent (or, if the student is under 18, the student’s parent).”