This weekend, the Maryland General Assembly will rule on how powerful technology platforms collect and use the personal data of consumers and young people, despite strong opposition from industry groups representing giant companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta. Passed two sweeping privacy bills aimed at limiting
One of the bills, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, would impose broad restrictions on how companies can collect and use the personal data of consumers in the state. Another Maryland Children's Act prohibits certain social media, video games, and other online platforms from tracking people under 18 or using video autoplay or other methods to keep young people glued online. It prohibits the use of manipulative techniques such as mass notifications.
“We are making a statement to the technology industry and to Marylanders that we need to curb some of this data collection,” said Delegate Sarah Love, a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates. . Love, who is the sponsor of the consumer bill and co-sponsor of the children's bill, described the passage of the two bills as “huge” milestones for privacy, saying, “We need to put some guardrails in place to protect consumers. We need to do that,” he added.
The new rules require approval from Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who has not taken a public position on the measure.
With the passage of this bill, Maryland will join a small number of states, including California, Connecticut, Texas, and Utah, that have enacted both comprehensive privacy laws and safeguards for children's online privacy and social media. However, the technology industry is challenging some of the new laws.
NetChoice, a technology industry trade group representing Amazon, Google and Meta, last year said the law violates its members' constitutional right to freely distribute information, saying it violates children's online privacy and social security in several states. We filed a lawsuit to block the media restrictions and won.
The Maryland Kids Code is modeled after California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act of 2022. Similar to California's law, Maryland's bill would require certain social media and video game platforms to turn on the highest privacy settings by default for minors. Services will also be prohibited from needlessly profiling minors and collecting precise location information.
However, a federal judge in California temporarily blocked the state's Children's Law and ruled in NetChoice's favor on free speech grounds. (The New York Times and the Student Press Law Center filed a joint amicus brief in the California lawsuit in support of NetChoice last year, arguing that the law could limit the newsworthy content available to students. (He claimed that there was.)
NetChoice similarly opposes Maryland's child regulations. Karl Szabo, NetChoice's vice president and general counsel, testified last year against an earlier version of the bill, saying the bill would protect the right of businesses to freely distribute information and the right of minors and adults to freely distribute information. It was claimed that the right to obtain information was infringed upon.
Maryland lawmakers then said they worked with constitutional experts to amend the constitution to address free speech concerns. The bill was passed unanimously.
“Technically, we are the second state to pass a children’s code,” said Democratic Rep. Jared Solomon, the sponsor of the children’s code bill. “But we hope to be the first state to survive the inevitable court challenges we know are coming.”
NetChoice's Szabo said in a statement that the organization expects Governor Moore to veto the child privacy bill. “Government does not replace parents,” he said. “Maryland lawmakers should stop trying to do it for parents and instead work with them.”
Several other tech industry trade groups strongly oppose another bill passed Saturday, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act.
The bill would require companies to minimize the data they collect about online consumers. It also prohibits online services from collecting or sharing sensitive personal information, such as ethnicity, religion, health, sexual orientation, precise location, biometrics, or immigration status data, unless “absolutely necessary.” be done.
