James Maroney

Sens. Duff, Maroney Vow to Continue Fighting For Data Privacy Removed From Implementer Bill

HARTFORD – Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) and Senator James Maroney (D-Milford) today criticized the removal of data privacy and consumer privacy protections in the state budget implementer bill and vowed to introduce legislation next session to address the issue.

Senate Bill 1202, the budget implementer bill for the biennial state budget, was amended by the House of Representatives early Thursday morning to remove the staff funding in the state attorney general’s office to affect those consumer protections.

“The Connecticut and United States constitutions prohibit illegal searches, yet private companies are allowed to surveil us every day,” said Sen. Maroney, who as Senate Chair of the General Law Committee introduced legislation this year regarding consumer privacy. “This section of the implementer bill as an opportunity for us to fight that surveillance by big tech. This issue has always been about rights and responsibilities: the right of consumers to protect their data, and the responsibility of companies to respect their customers’ privacy wishes. With this implementer change, we have chosen to protect out-of-state corporations over the privacy rights of our own state citizens/.”

“We have a crisis of consumer privacy in this country. Our various electronic devices are listening to us, watching us, and big tech is profiting off of every keystroke we make. At this point consumers have no expectation of privacy, and it is literally the Wild West out there,” Sen. Duff said. “When you have multiple lobbyists being paid millions of dollars to defeat bills like this, you know we are facing an uphill battle. When lobbyists win, consumers lose. But we are going to fight this fight, and I know that eventually right will win.”

In February, Sen. Maroney introduced Senate Bill 893, “An Act Concerning Consumer Privacy,” which would have created a consumer data bill of rights and required big-tech companies to clearly state what data is being collected, how it’s being used, and why – and consumers would have the right to see that data, fix any errors in it, or delete it all.

The bill received favorable votes in three committees, but was never voted on by the legislature. More than 60 lobbyists were hired to kill that legislation, and 11 of the lobbying firms were paid over $1.8 million to kill data privacy (AT&T spent more than $600,000 by itself).

“Senator Duff and I will bring this bill back next session,” Sen. Maroney said. “Connecticut residents will be the winners when we bring back and pass a stronger bill.”