Hartford, Conn. — Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed a comprehensive privacy bill into law that will extend baseline privacy rights to consumers, including the right to access, delete, and stop the sale of their personal information. Connecticut becomes the fifth state, after California, Virginia, Colorado, and Utah, to extend baseline privacy rights to consumers.
Consumer Reports praised the governor and legislature for approving the bill. “Connecticut is helping to lead the way on privacy rights in the United States,” said Justin Brookman, director of privacy and tech policy for Consumer Reports. “This year we saw giant tech companies push weak bills at the state level, so we are especially pleased to see Connecticut sign a strong law that will extend real privacy protections to its citizens.”
The Connecticut bill, SB 6, has key provisions missing from some other state laws that will make it more workable for consumers:
- The bill requires companies to honor browser privacy signals, such as the Global Privacy Control, so that consumers can opt out of data sales at all companies in a single step;
- It prohibits the use of so-called “dark patterns” in obtaining consent to process sensitive information;
- The bill places a sunset on the “right to cure” in administrative enforcement, so that after January 1, 2025, companies will no longer have a “get out of jail free” card for failing to protect consumer privacy.
The Connecticut privacy law will go into effect on July 1, 2023. While privacy legislation at the national level continues to stall, Connecticut was one of over twenty states that considered consumer privacy legislation this year.
Contact: Cyrus Rassool, cyrus.rassool@consumer.org