Industry can’t figure out a constitutional way to word a kids’ privacy bill, a TechNet official said at a Washington state legislative hearing Tuesday.
Connecticut’s age-verification bill includes only minor changes from current state privacy and social media regulations, Sen. James Maroney (D) said Wednesday.
A South Dakota Senate panel advanced an age-verification bill that the House passed last month (see 2501220002). The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 7-0 Tuesday to clear HB-1053, which requires age verification to limit websites containing harmful material to users 18 and older. The panel tabled the similar SB-18 and deferred another bill (SB-180) that would require age verification on app stores.
President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking greater control of independent agencies like the FTC will politicize the regulatory process and result in further bureaucratic delay, Democratic senators and stakeholders told us in interviews Wednesday. Capitol Hill Republicans and Democrats were divided along party lines in support and against Trump’s executive action.
Vermont Sen. Wendy Harrison (D) aims to protect kids’ data privacy with a state age-appropriate design code bill (S-69), she said during a webcast hearing Tuesday. However, even before hearing from witnesses, Sen. Russ Ingalls (R) said he didn’t think he could support the bill. “I’m really nervous for businesses,” he said.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation expects an "onslaught" of privacy issues in Congress this year, said Maddie Daly, EFF assistant director-federal affairs, in an interview with Privacy Daily. Some of EFF's top priorities, including a national privacy bill, may be "idealistic," but it's still important to push for them, Daly said.
The House Commerce Committee’s new Republican working group will focus solely on comprehensive privacy legislation, and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., will remain the lead on kids privacy, Rep. John Joyce, R-Pa., told us Thursday.
Perhaps New Mexico shouldn’t go beyond other states' privacy laws, legislators on the House Commerce Committee said during a livestreamed hearing Wednesday. However, an American Civil Liberties official encouraged New Mexico lawmakers to lead the way with HB-307, an opt-in privacy bill containing a private right of action, strict data minimization requirements and kids’ design code rules (see 2502060058).
Long-anticipated bills by Vermont state Rep. Monique Priestly (D) on comprehensive data privacy (H-208), an age-appropriate design code (H-210) and data broker deletion requirements (H-211) formally entered the legislature on Wednesday. The 2025 privacy bill “contains a number of adjustments that address concerns from stakeholders, including members of the business community, while maintaining the core consumer protections expected by Vermonters,” said an H-208 summary.
The federal government’s failure to act on children and teens’ online safety and privacy was called out in a Thursday hearing in Washington state's Senate Business Committee. Supporters of a bipartisan bill to protect minors online said that job is now up to the states.