Massachusetts voted to pass a new privacy rights bill that would ban the sale of precise location data

Massachusetts lawmakers voted to pass privacy protections that give state residents new rights to access and delete their data held by big tech companies. The bill also prohibits companies from selling precise location data to their users.

Massachusetts House lawmakers passed the state’s consumer data privacy law in a unanimous 146-0 vote Thursday, months after all 40 lawmakers in the Senate voted to introduce their own bill in September. Now, the bills will be consolidated in the Senate and sent to the governor’s office, where they are expected to be signed into law. It is not immediately clear when this will happen.

The move makes Massachusetts the latest US state to push to strengthen consumer privacy rights after years of documented violations by the technology, advertising and social media industries. While the United States does not have a national privacy law, unlike many of the world’s major democracies, US states have filled the legislative void by bringing their own patchwork of privacy rules that apply to their states.

If the draft law is passed, it will apply to companies that deal with or process the personal data of more than 100,000 consumers. This will greatly impact medium-sized startups as well as technology giants in Silicon Valley.

The law prohibits sharing or selling sensitive information without the user’s explicit consent. This data includes biometrics (such as health data, genetic information, and fingerprints), their precise geolocation data, and other markers about their religion, immigration status, and sexual orientation.

The collection and sale of people’s location data has been a major flashpoint in privacy debates for years. For years, data brokers have relied on app developers selling their users’ location data to repackage it and sell it to anyone who can pay, including stalkers, governments and militaries. In many cases, the government says it does not need a court order to purchase data that is commercially available on the open market.

The Biden administration came close to banning the sale of Americans’ sensitive data at the federal level, but the Trump administration has since reversed that change.

By applying location data blocking to both residents and visitors, Massachusetts law will effectively cover the prohibition on the sale of location data across the state. The bill is expected to have a broad impact on startups that collect, share, and sell location data in Massachusetts, as well as advertising companies that use location data to target people with ads.

According to local media outlet WBUR and the Lynn Journal in Massachusetts, state legislators worked across party lines believing that privacy is a fundamental right for Massachusetts residents.

Privacy groups and advocates generally praised the bill.

Evan Greer, director of the advocacy group Fight for the Future, said the Massachusetts bill “takes a major step toward cracking down on surveillance abuses by Big Tech companies,” while the American Civil Liberties Union praised the landmark bill as positioning the state as “a leader in protecting personal privacy and reducing digital surveillance.”