Consumer Reports strongly supports S. 2516, the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act (MDPA), which would create critical protections to safeguard the privacy of Massachusetts consumers’ personal data.
The bill would require businesses to abide by strong data minimization provisions, which would prevent them from collecting or processing information that is not necessary to provide the specific product or service requested by consumers. It would also extend to Massachusetts consumers important new protections relating to their personal information, including prohibitions against selling sensitive data outright, a ban on the use of sensitive data for targeted advertisements, restrictions against targeting advertisements to children, and more.
Consumer Reports also supports similar legislation in the House, H. 78 (the Massachussetts Consumer Data Privacy Act), which is based on CR and EPIC’s model state privacy bill and would accomplish many of the same objectives. We also urge the legislature to advance H.86/S.197, the Location Shield Act, so that it can consider banning the sale of precise geolocation data in the event that it is unable to move forward with comprehensive legislation that bans the sale of the broader category of sensitive data.
To read the full letter, please see the attached PDF.