Every day, unregulated data brokers buy and sell detailed location data from apps on our cellphones, revealing where we work, live, seek health care, and more. Anyone can buy this data and use it to harm us. The places we go and our daily movements reveal our religious, political, and personal affiliations - information that deserves to be private.

To protect our privacy, safety, and preserve our Fourth Amendment protections, Massachusetts needs to ban the sale, purchase, leasing, trading, and renting of location data.

An act to protect safety and privacy by stopping the sale of location data, the Location Shield Act (SD 501/HD2965), would do just that. Urge your state lawmakers to support and pass the LSA by writing to them today!

Why do we need the Location Shield Act?

As long as someone has a credit card, they can purchase location information from a data broker to track your location. Unfettered access to this sensitive data is abused everyday:

• Several companies were caught selling detailed location and demographic data about people visiting abortion clinics and other medical providers.
• One of the largest data brokers, Gravy Analytics, suffered a devastating security breach in 2025, exposing untold amounts of sensitive location information to potentially hostile actors
• Bounty hunters and debt collectors purchased location data in order to stalk and harass people

Data brokerage also has serious consequences for our Fourth Amendment civil liberties. In 2023, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a report on the Intelligence Community's (IC) purchase of commercially available information (CAI). The report verified that government agencies are buying more and more data from private brokers.

The kind of information the government purchases from brokers, including location information, is subject to protections like the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and statutory protections like Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Carpenter held that law enforcement and government agents need a warrant to obtain persistent location information. Yet, the government at every level persists in narrowly construing this Court decision and therefore violates the rights enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.

The Location Shield Act would be a monumental step in reining in these abuses.

MA Lawmakers Must Listen to Voters

Baystaters overwhelmingly agree - you shouldn't have to give up your privacy to use a cellphone.

• Ninety-two percent (92%) of voters MA voters support passing a law to prohibit the sale of personal location data.
• By a 3-to-1 margin, voters think the state has a responsibility to protect the privacy of people's location data.

MA can lead the nation by passing this popular, common sense privacy reform. Write to your lawmakers today!

For more information about the Location Shield Act, visit the ACLU's resource page here.