VTDigger: Disagreement and lobbying threaten passage of Vermont’s landmark data privacy bill

The following is a brief excerpt of an article written by Sarah Mearhoff on April 17, 2024. Read the full story at VTDigger… This was supposed to be the year that Vermont legislators took on Big Tech in a sweeping data privacy bill years in the making. With mere weeks left in the session, that’s looking less likely.

As Vermont legislators filtered back into the Statehouse early this year for the 2024 legislative session, several set their sights on a new target for regulation: Big Tech.

With the federal government unable or unwilling to set parameters around the collection, sharing or sale of Americans’ data, state lawmakers said they would step up to the plate to establish state-level digital rules by which corporations would have to comply.

But stark differences of opinion between key players in the Vermont House and Senate — and ramped-up lobbying efforts by business interests and Big Tech — threaten to hold up the passage of two landmark bills this legislative session.

“Policy this big takes everyone in the building, chamber-to-chamber and administration, being united,” Rep. Monique Priestley, D-Bradford, told VTDigger in an interview last week. “It has not felt like we as a building are as united as we need to be to fight Big Tech.”

In January, two major pieces of tech legislation appeared poised for passage. One, H.121, would establish ground rules for Vermonters’ digital privacy and data sharing, and establish a private right of action against companies suspected of violating that privacy. The second, S.289, would compel social media companies to adjust their digital codes and algorithms for users under 18 years of age, in hopes of addressing social media’s documented negative impacts on teens and adolescents.

Now, with mere weeks remaining in the 2024 legislative session, the two key legislative panels that initiated the bills — the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development, and the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs — are at odds, despite each of the bills passing unanimously out of the House and Senate, respectively.

Read the full story: Disagreement and lobbying threaten passage of Vermont’s landmark data privacy bill