One of Maine’s two competing comprehensive privacy bills failed to clear the Joint Judiciary Committee during a work session Friday while the other bill was passed as amended.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) signed an age-appropriate design code (AADC) bill (LB-504) at a ceremony Friday. Pillen previously said he would “proudly” sign the measure once it passed the unicameral legislature 42-7 earlier this week (see 2505280066).
Vermont’s comprehensive privacy bill won’t pass the legislature in 2025, the second year in a row that sweeping legislation by Rep. Monique Priestley (D) has failed to become law. At a livestreamed House Commerce Committee meeting Wednesday, Priestley said legislators “ran out of time” to finish the bill this session, particularly with more pressing housing and education measure before the legislature. However, to tee up summer talks about privacy, Priestley said she plans to post an amendment restoring the Senate bill to the original House version, with some changes.
Delaying the Maine privacy bill’s effective date gives the state an “escape hatch if things go awry in Maryland,” said House Chair Amy Kuhn (D) at a Maine Judiciary Committee meeting Friday. The panel weighed an amendment to Kuhn’s comprehensive measure (LD-1822), which features a data-minimization standard similar to the one in the Maryland privacy law. Also, members narrowed to two, from three, the number of comprehensive privacy bills pending before the committee.
A substantive amendment to a Maine privacy bill would color in what data is allowed to be collected under its Maryland-like data minimization requirement. House Chair Amy Kuhn (D) on Thursday released the proposed amendment to her LD-1822, which also moves back the bill’s effective date, addresses mergers and bankruptcies, and makes many wording changes. The joint Judiciary Committee plans to consider the draft amendment at a work session Friday.
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The increased ties between industry and government have led to more data collection, which has had serious implications for democracy, panelists told a Columbia University Knight First Amendment Institute forum on surveillance and democracy at the National Press Club on Friday.
Businesses must traverse an expanding “minefield of state and international regulations,” said BigID CEO Dimitri Sirota in an interview last month at the IAPP Global Privacy Conference in Washington. The emergence of AI has also created privacy compliance challenges -- but the emerging technology could also make some aspects of the data protection profession more efficient, he said.
Massachusetts senators advanced a comprehensive privacy bill that includes a private right of action and Maryland-like data-minimization requirements. On Monday, the Senate side of the legislature’s joint Advanced Information Technology Committee advanced to the Ways and Means Committee a new draft of the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act (S-2516) that replaces bills by the committee’s Senate Chair Michael Moore (D), Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem (D) and Sen. William Driscoll (D). Some alternatives remain pending, including legislation by Sen. Barry Finegold (D), his spokesperson told Privacy Daily.
Age-verification tools are not a silver bullet that will protect children and young people on internet sites and social media platforms, speakers said Monday at a session of the European Dialogue on Internet Governance.