TODAY: Tell Your State Rep: Pass a Strong Data Privacy Bill

The Massachusetts House of Representatives will be voting TODAY, on a data privacy bill.

Your precise location data – showing which doctor’s office you visited last month, which NO KINGS rallies you’ve attended, and when and where you drop your kids off every day – is currently for sale on the open market. The shadowy collection and processing of your data by Big Tech and data brokers consistently exposes your private life to bad actors, including Trump’s ICE — just one of many buyers of our precise geolocation data.

Over the past year, civil liberties advocates have been pushing for a robust data privacy bill that does three things:

  1. Data minimization: Organizations should only be able to collect, use, and retain the minimum amount of personal information necessary to fulfill a specific, authorized purpose (Lay terms: If it’s not essential, you can’t collect it, and you certainly keep it.)
  2. Ban on the sale of sensitive data: This includes location data, but also health data, data on immigration status, data on gender identity and sexual orientation, biometric data, etc.
  3. Private right of action: If your rights are violated, you should be able to sue.

The House bill contains some major wins, but also some clear areas for improvement.

What’s good in the bill: strong protections to ban the sale of location data; private right of action

What needs improvement: data minimization language; protections for sensitive data other than location data

Can you write to your state rep today about the importance of passing a strong bill? Read on for what that means.

Here’s what a strong bill looks like.

Join us in supporting the following amendments backed by our allies in the civil liberties, civil rights, and labor advocacy community:

  • #3 to reiterate that use of employer owned devices is a mandatory subject of collective bargaining, filed be Rep. Field
  • #7 to restrict employer ability to disclose employee data without express employee consent, filed by Rep. Montaño
  • #8 to limit the transfer of employee data outside of operationally necessary reasons, filed by Rep. Montaño
  • #10 to ban surveillance pricing for groceries, filed by Rep. Sabadosa
  • #13 to strengthen the definition of “affirmative consent,” filed by Rep. Sabadosa
  • #16 to fix the data minimization language, filed by Rep. Decker
  • #21 to strengthen the private right of action, filed by Rep. Cataldo
  • #33 to clarify the definition of “transfer,” filed by Rep. Rogers
  • #36 to protect LGBTQ youth data, filed by Rep. Montaño
  • #38 to strengthen the data minimization language, filed by Rep. Kilcoyne
  • #40 to strengthen the data minimization language, filed by Rep. Owens

Join us in opposing the following amendments:

  • #11, which weakens privacy notification, filed by Rep. Phillips
  • #15, which creates a wholesale exemption to the bill for banks and financial institutions, filed by Rep. Chris Markey
  • #17, which creates a wholesale exemption for insurers, filed by Rep. Biele
  • #18, which eliminates the PRA, filed by Rep. Biele
  • #19, which creates an exemption to the LSA for “mobility” data, filed by Rep. Kilcoyne
  • #20, which creates a loophole in the non-discrimination protections, filed by Rep. Cusack

Rent Control and Same Day Registration Are in the Mass Dems Platform. Beacon Hill Should Pass Them.

It’s ballot question signature collection season. When going to the grocery store or the farmer’s market, you may have started seeing people collecting for various questions. Maybe you are even doing it yourself. We’re on track for a record number of ballot questions this fall.

But there’s something Beacon Hill could do to make that ballot more manageable: pass policies already in the Massachusetts Democratic Party platform.

The Massachusetts Democratic Party platform supports rent control and supports Same Day Registration. It recognizes that curbing the growth of rent is a critical tool to fight displacement, and it recognizes that voters should be able to register to vote or update their registration at the polls (almost all of our neighboring states already allow it).

So, as Massachusetts Democrats get ready for their annual party convention in Worcester this weekend, it’s a good time to write to your Democratic state legislators and tell them: let’s make our platform mean something.

Already emailed your legislators recently? Why not try calling for follow-up?

My Top Five Favorite Songs about Data Privacy

Today, technology has far outpaced privacy law. Data brokers and Big Tech are free to do almost anything they want with our personal information, including selling our cellphone location data on the open market.

That’s why we have been working with groups from across the state to push for stronger data privacy protections.

When I was thinking recently about this push for data privacy at the State House, I got to thinking about a really important question: What are the best songs about data privacy?

So I put together my top five favorite songs about privacy and surveillance (🥁🥁):

5. “Secret Agent Man” by Johnny Rivers

4. “Our Lips Are Sealed” by The Go-Go’s

3. “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell

2. “Every Breath You Take” by The Police

1. The sweet sound of people calling their legislators to demand action on data privacy (It’s music to my ears)

That’s right: nothing beats the sound of people putting pressure on their elected officials to take overdue action.

Can you call or email your state rep today in support of taking action to protect data privacy?

Here’s what you need to know:

  • The MA Senate passed a bill to ban the sale of sensitive data (like location data) and curtail what companies can collect back in September.
  • The MA House’s Advanced IT Committee advanced a bill (H.4746) in November.
  • The clock is ticking, and we need the House to bring it up for a vote.

And here’s what you can do:

In solidarity,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts

PS: When you call or email about data privacy, it can’t hurt to add a note about why the House should also back down from its push for online age verification policies that are filled with privacy landmines.

Follow-up from webinar “The Tech Billionaires Are Coming for Fair Share. Here’s How to Fight Back.”

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us last night for our webinar “The Tech Billionaires Are Coming for Fair Share. Here’s How to Fight Back.”! 

You can watch the video here. And feel free to share it with friends! 

Next Steps

Support & Strengthen the PROTECT Act

he MA Senate is voting tomorrow on the PROTECT Act (S.3072), which takes important steps to protect immigrant communities in Massachusetts, such as banning new 287(g) agreements, preventing law enforcement from asking about immigration status or using resources for civil immigration enforcement, limiting information sharing with ICE, protecting courthouses and other sensitive locations, and more.

The MA Senate has the opportunity to strengthen the bill by adopting the following amendments:

  • Amendment #7 (Gómez): Effective Date Support, which reduces the implementation timeline of the provisions limiting law enforcement collaboration with ICE from 180 days to 30 days from passage
  • Amendment #10 (Edwards): Courthouse Curtilage Support, which extends courthouse protections to the walkways, alleys, driveways, and sidewalks adjacent to the courthouse plus 300 additional feet
  • Amendment #11 (Eldridge): Protect Immigrant Victims of Crime and Trafficking, which helps immigrant victims get faster decisions on certifications they need to apply for immigration relief, especially if they are facing deportation, and makes it clear they can get legal support
  • Amendment #55 (Brady): Language Access and Community Education, which requires translation of model policies for sensitive locations in the Commonwealth’s top 5 languages and requires annual Know Your Rights trainings at schools and covered health care providers.

Can you send your state senator an email in support?(Or leave them a message?)

Just Say NO to Corporate Extortionists

Corporate CEOs are backing two ballot questions to cut the income tax. Combined with Trump’s cuts to the state, these questions will blow an $8 Billion hole in the budget, a radical, reckless attack on our state’s finances and working families. This cut of more than 10% of the state’s budget means defunding our schools, our cities and towns, and our health care.

With the threat of such severe cuts, these CEOs are trying to scare the legislature into a backroom deal to cut taxes for millionaires and corporations.

These CEOs are still mad about the passage of the Fair Share Amendment. They chipped in a few more cents per dollar on their income over a million, and we were able to fund universal school meals, free community college, and more. They want to get rid of all of this and more.

The big donors and backers of these questions won’t go to the ballot— they know that such deep cuts will undermine the transportation and services their businesses depend upon. If a few fanatics do go forward, faith, labor, and community groups are ready to defeat them.

If the Legislature concedes and lets these corporate extortionists get their way, they will keep coming back year after year with more threats and more demands. They will keep enriching themselves, and the investments we all depend on will suffer.

Tell your legislators to say NO to negotiating with corporate extortionists and NO to any deal with them.

But there’s more that you can do:

Follow-up to Spring Forward Webinar “Spring Forward: Investing in People, not Prisons: The Prison Moratorium and Beyond”

Thank you so much to everyone who joined our Spring Forward webinar on Wednesday about the prison moratorium and the important work happening on decarceration with Mallory Hanora of Families for Justice as Healing!

Follow-Up Links

  • You can watch the video here. 

Happy National Library Week! Let’s Rein in Book Bans.

Happy National Library Week!

The theme for this year’s National Library Week is “Find Your Joy,” a recognition of the value of libraries in helping individuals of all ages explore, imagine, learn, relax, and so much more. Libraries make learning fun.

But libraries have been under attack, with a rise of book ban efforts attacking schools and libraries across the country and here in Massachusetts. Book bans are attacks on free speech in general, and attacks more specifically on the identities, histories, or topics represented in targeted books, materials, and media. Many attempts have targeted books and media dealing with LGBTQ characters and themes, race, equity, social justice, and the US’s complicated history.

Many book bans have targeted librarians themselves—limiting their ability to choose books and media, and even proposing punishments. Some book ban attempts challenge classroom book collections, limiting teachers’ abilities to meet their students’ needs.

Last November, the MA Senate passed legislation to rein in politically motivated book bans. We need the MA House to do so too.

Can you write to your state rep today about the need to pass legislation to do so?

Follow-up Links to Spring Forward: What Beacon Hill Can Do on Energy Affordability webinar

Thank you to everyone who joined last night’s webinar! And if you weren’t able to join, you were missed!

Here is the video:

Vick shared two action alerts and one upcoming event:  

Follow-up links & actions to Webinar “Spring Forward: Privacy and Power: Protecting Our Digital Rights and Democracy”

Thank you so much for joining our webinar on Wednesday “Spring Forward: Privacy and Power: Protecting Our Digital Rights and Democracy”! And thank you to our great speaker, Kade Crockford from the ACLU of Massachusetts. 

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/wHi4nsmLjjc.

https://youtu.be/wHi4nsmLjjc

And here are the follow-up links from Kade: 

  1. ACLU presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1G9hEyXj0-3IMz16f9ctnPXQaiP7NO_bZ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108538486946816465140&rtpof=true&sd=true
  2. ACLU resources on privacy: https://www.aclum.org/campaigns-initiatives/data-privacy-now/
    1. Includes talking points
    2. Action: https://mobilize.aclum.org/a/pass-enforceable-data-privacy-legislation
  3. ACLU resources on facial recognition: https://www.aclum.org/campaigns-initiatives/press-pause-face-surveillance/
  4. ACLU blog on license plate readers in MA: https://data.aclum.org/2025/10/07/flock-gives-law-enforcement-all-over-the-country-access-to-your-location/
    1. Local level action: https://mobilize.aclum.org/a/email-your-municipal-leaders-flock

Hope to see you at an upcoming event!