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Consumer Reports Comments on Oregon S.B. 619 (Consumer Privacy Legislation)

Consumer Reports supports, if it is amended, Oregon S.B. 619, consumer privacy legislation. S.B. 619 would extend to Oregon consumers important new protections, including the right to know the information companies have collected about them, the right to access, correct, and delete that information, as well as the ability to require businesses to honor authorized agents’ browser privacy signals as an opt out of sale, targeted advertising, and profiling.

Importantly, S.B. 619 currently includes a private right of action.

However, the legislation still contains significant loopholes that would hinder its overall effectiveness. We offer several suggestions to strengthen the bill to provide the level of protection that Oregonians deserve. These include:

  • Expanding opt-out protections to all commercial sharing
  • Tightening the definition and interpretation of bona fide loyalty programs to eliminate loopholes
  • Clarifying there are no authentication requirements for opt-outs
  • Removing ambiguities around requirements that the authorized agent not “unfairly disadvantage” other controllers
  • Amending prohibitions on default opt-outs
  • Clarifying that approximating geolocation by IP address is sufficient residency authentication
  • Clarifying that companies cannot hound consumers for consent to disregard a global opt-out or other opt-out request
  • Removing the right to cure from the Attorney General enforcement section
  • Limiting exceptions
  • Including strong civil rights protections
  • Eliminating the entity-level financial institution carveout

Consumer Reports also presented oral testimony during the Oregon Senate Judiciary Committee’s public hearing on the bill.

To read the full letter, please see the attached PDF.