Massachusetts residents innocently use their cell phones every day to check the weather or the traffic, find a store, buy products and services, post on social media, and research their interests or medical questions. But with every action, our phone’s Mobile Advertising ID enables companies to collect their data and sell it to data brokers or market it in the real-time bidding stream, where it is purchased or freely intercepted to target advertising to us, track our location and create dossiers for nearly all Massachusetts residents.

An excellent comprehensive data privacy bill, The Massachusetts Data Privacy Act (MDPA), S.2516, is before the Ways and Means Committee. This bill also contains the full text of the Location Shield Act.

Please write to your MA legislator on the Ways and Means Committee and tell them why they should enact The Massachusetts Data Privacy Act (MDPA), S.2516, this legislative session.

The MDPA contains:

1. Strong data minimization provisions which limit

   1. the collection of personal data to what is reasonably necessary for a company to provide the data or service requested by a consumer

   2. The collection of sensitive data to what is strictly necessary to provide the data or service requested by a consumer

2. Prohibition on the sale of sensitive data.

3. Requirement for a warrant for law enforcement access to our location data.

4. Requires the affirmative consent of a consumer before each transfer of their personal data.

5. Provides every consumer with the right to see, correct verifiable inaccuracies in, and delete their personal data that has been collected by a company.

6. Gives consumers the right to opt out of targeted advertising or automated profiling.

7. Requires that companies provide a clear and obvious privacy notice about their data collection practice and security measures and method to contact them for execution of all of a consumer’s rights.

8. Establishes a free automated mechanism whereby consumers can learn whether a data broker possesses their data and can request that their data be deleted.

9. Requires Data Brokers to be audited to ensure that they are removing data as requested or at least no longer selling the data.

10. Enforces all of the provisions through both civil action by the Attorney General and a private right of action so that consumers and groups representing them can sue companies with gross annual revenues of over $20 million that violate their rights for injunctive relief and damages.

Please write to your MA legislator on the Ways and Means Committee and tell them why they should enact The Massachusetts Data Privacy Act (MDPA), S.2516, this legislative session. It's time to enact the strongest comprehensive data privacy bill in the United States!