Consumer Reports supports, if amended, MI SB 1082, which seeks to extend long overdue privacy protections to reproductive health data.
SB 1082 seeks to improve protections of this sensitive data by requiring providers of reproductive health care services (including reproductive health apps) to provide baseline consumer rights, such as the right to access and delete reproductive health data, restricting their ability to collect and use reproductive health data (data minimization), creating specific limitations on the sale of reproductive health data, and prohibiting the practice of geofencing. The bill also currently includes a private right of action, which is key to ensuring that businesses are adequately incentivized to comply with the law and that consumers have alternate avenues of redress in the event that government enforcers do not take action on their complaints.
However, we recommend several amendments to ensure that this bill achieves its intended goals, including:
- Ban the Sale of Reproductive Health Data Outright
- Widen the applicability of the geofencing provisions
- Close Loopholes in the Data Minimization Provision
- Remove Constraints on the Private Right of Action
To read more, see the attached PDF.