alt.hn

6/8/2026 at 5:07:33 PM

Massachusetts bans sale of precise location data in new privacy rights bill

 https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/massachusetts-votes-to-pass-new-privacy-rights-bill-that-bans-sale-of-precise-location-data/

by 01-_-

6/8/2026 at 7:18:33 PM

California very quietly passed AB-1542 last week which includes precise location data, health data, SSNs, etc. I expect many states to follow suit.

Related, General Motors got hit with a $12.75M fine for reselling OnStar location data last month: https://ccpa.world/enforcement/gm-onstar-smart-driver

by jboggan

6/8/2026 at 8:14:27 PM

> I expect many states to follow suit.

More importantly, many companies will follow California rules even outside California. My car was built to California emissions spec at a time when very few states had stricter rules.

(The one major exception seems to be the "sell my data" opt-out and such privacy rules, that industry is sleazy enough that they'll go through extra trouble to keep screwing over non-CA residents.)

by yencabulator

6/8/2026 at 8:28:53 PM

Well, CT and VT passed their own version of the California DROP system last week and there are 5 other states in play for the current 2026 legislative sessions. I think it will be a slow patchwork for more states to take similar action, but it is coming.

I will note that many "data brokers" will just honor non-California residents' requests as if they were California residents and subject to the CCPA, simply because they would rather remove a potentially litigious consumer from their databases. Given the relatively low potential revenue for a single consumer's data it just doesn't make sense to hold on to information for the kind of person who currently goes out of their way to make that kind of request.

At the same time, many data brokers do go out of their way to deny as many privacy requests as possible. Given that the CPPA/CalPrivacy is starting audits very soon I don't see this as a winning strategy for them in the long run.

by jboggan

6/8/2026 at 11:41:32 PM

Watching "The Price is Right" made California a mythical place for me as a child in the Midwest. All the cars being given away, they were sure to mention, followed "California emissions standards!"

No surprise. I ended up moving here.

by themafia

6/8/2026 at 10:16:58 PM

The FTC settlement with GM allows GM to sell precise location as long as it's anonymized by attaching it to anonymous identifiers rather than personal info. It also allows non-precise location (e.g. zipcode/census-block) attached to identifying information.

Apparently no one at the FTC is smart enough to realize if Bob and anonid both move through the same sequence of approximate locations that the anonid is Bob. Or maybe they aren't that ignorant and just wanted to look like they were doing their job while protecting the surveillance status quo.

by nullc

6/9/2026 at 2:15:09 AM

Selling anonymized precise location of a car that spends ~half the day at a residential location sure will make it impossible to de-anonymize that data.

The FTC under this administration that just doesn't care about people and only care about helping corporations.

by dylan604

6/8/2026 at 10:27:46 PM

The government measures success in column inches.

by throwaway85825

6/9/2026 at 3:32:21 PM

The CPPA went above the FTC and banned it outright, as well as forcing the two registered data brokers who bought the data to delete it.

by jboggan

6/9/2026 at 1:34:23 PM

I wonder how much money GM made selling the data vs the fine.

by MisterTea

6/9/2026 at 12:03:13 AM

it's out of Committee in the House and passed a House vote.. not done yet

by gnerd00

6/8/2026 at 7:03:01 PM

Feels like the word 'sale' may actually turn into a loophole. It should have probably been worded to use 'exchange' or 'transfer' instead. But this is progress.

by danesparza

6/8/2026 at 7:33:21 PM

Yeah, we need data minimization. As long as it's collected it is a liability for consumers, turn it into a liability for businesses to incentive them to collect as little as possible.

by Cider9986

6/9/2026 at 1:11:12 AM

https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/S2619/BillHistory

SECTION 1. The General Laws are hereby amended by inserting after chapter 93L the following chapter:-

Chapter 93M. Massachusetts Data Privacy Act

Section 1. As used in this chapter, the following words shall have the following meanings unless the context otherwise requires:

...

“Sale of personal data”, the transfer of personal data in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration by the controller to a third party; provided, however, that “sale of personal data” shall not include: (i) the disclosure of personal data to a processor that processes the personal data on behalf of the controller if limited to the purposes of the processing; (ii) the disclosure of personal data to a third party for purposes of providing a product or service affirmatively requested by the consumer; (iii) the disclosure or transfer of personal data to an affiliate of the controller; (iv) the disclosure of personal data with the consumer’s affirmative consent, where the consumer affirmatively directs the controller to disclose the personal data or intentionally uses the controller to interact with a third party; (v) the disclosure or transfer of personal data to a third party as an asset that is part of a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or other transaction or a proposed merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or other transaction, in which the third party assumes control of all or part of the controller’s assets; or (vi) the disclosure of personal data that the consumer: (A) intentionally made available to the general public via a channel of mass media; and (B) did not restrict to a specific audience.

by bobro

6/8/2026 at 6:50:30 PM

Does this include vehicle data? That's a big one. Your new car selling you out constantly.

by post_break

6/8/2026 at 7:56:26 PM

I've been driving connected cars for a decade and I haven't felt sold out yet. What am I missing?

by stronglikedan

6/8/2026 at 9:24:17 PM

* Massachusetts' RMV AFAICT resells one's data, resulting in new car purchasers receiving a huge amount of fraud in their mail. It can be difficult to distinguish what is a legitimate correspondence from the dealership vs. what isn't, as the fraud mail does not clearly identify itself. (And in fact, that's the tell.)

* My Subaru runs ads for Sirius XM. (Ad, on the infotainment screen. While the car's in motion.) I did not pay for my car to run ads, obviously, and obviously that was never mentioned by the dealer, ever, before or after purchase.

by deathanatos

6/8/2026 at 9:00:32 PM

Are you in the US? Currently if you are in the US and not native-born, you're at very direct risk. That data is how ICE builds their enforcement leads. It's still often wrong, so they might break down your door and arrest you at gunpoint anyways.

by tencentshill

6/9/2026 at 2:37:16 PM

> That data is how ICE builds their enforcement leads

Which is kind of ironic when you think about how much of their target demographic is driving 1999 Ford Rangers and 2003 Chevy Savannas.

Obviously they'll just augment it with ALPR, but still.

by cucumber3732842

6/8/2026 at 8:25:45 PM

Tail risk. Only <1% of people get punished by their car's data. IMO that's still too much.

by wmf

6/8/2026 at 8:23:29 PM

Are you asking for articles that show how connected car data is being sold left and right?

by chaps

6/8/2026 at 8:56:45 PM

Your driving habits, and everyone around you are impacting car insurance for example.

by post_break

6/9/2026 at 1:44:47 AM

This is not straightforwardly true. Many people say that Toyota sells their data to insurance companies, but they do not unless you *affirmatively* opt in.

If you read the lawsuits and allegations carefully, they all say that they were tricked into opting in (NOT that they weren't opted in). If you review the setup process you see that the claim is outlandish and likely someone else did setup for them or they "forgot."

Toyota makes you affirmatively click a "yes" or "no" (or maybe it says "Accept" / "Reject" or whatever) for Insurance sharing when setting up a profile.

by ezfe

6/8/2026 at 8:06:00 PM

I bought a car earlier this year and it took about a week before I started getting car warranty junk mail for the new car.

by criddell

6/8/2026 at 8:32:17 PM

I always thought that is from companies that get their hands on registration data. Or I could be wrong and it is the dealer itself selling it on not the manufacturer.

by cogogo

6/8/2026 at 10:07:20 PM

Pretty sure it's registration data. Anything public is now used for junk. We transferred a piece of property this year and have been getting constant spam for realtors to sell it for us. We bought a used car from an individual and started getting spam for warranties once we registered it and got plates.

by Loughla

6/9/2026 at 4:24:56 PM

Just to be clear: real estate is generally public records viewable by anybody, while vehicle titles/registrations generally aren't (without having been deliberately sold by the state).

by mindslight

6/9/2026 at 1:00:46 PM

You're missing the fact that if I wanted to find you and kill you companies are collecting that location data and I can buy it and use it to accomplish my goal.

by lightedman

6/9/2026 at 3:56:41 AM

later in the article it said not only selling, but sharing.

important because "sharing" is much more prevalent than "selling" data.

that said, I wonder how "precise location", and statistics/algorithms will combine?

for example, what if someone moves from zipcode 1 to zipcode 2? would that work out to a more precise position?

by m463

6/8/2026 at 10:26:10 PM

Only data that does not exist cannot be misused.

by throwaway85825

6/8/2026 at 11:43:29 PM

A moment of high drama in the courtroom:

"Did you notice anything odd about the defendants vehicle?"

"Yes."

"What was that?"

"He had disabled his GPS and telemetry systems."

by themafia

6/9/2026 at 12:44:02 AM

Massachusetts allows the use of Cellebrite software.

In which case "precise location data" is moot.

by timeninja

6/9/2026 at 1:30:24 AM

Sure, if the cops seize your phone from you and try to suck out its data, then they clearly already know your precise location. But in some situations you would've been able to avoid getting your phone sucked out by the cops if they hadn't been able to purchase precise location data about where you were in the hours/days/weeks leading up to that.

by hoppyhoppy2

6/9/2026 at 1:43:14 AM

What is your point here? That's not what this law is about.

by ezfe

6/9/2026 at 12:45:34 PM

What prevents law enforcement from collecting this data/other signals and anonymizing it and then running models against it? Are there any laws against this?

by testytestyroo

6/9/2026 at 1:51:58 AM

Thank god if this is true! If not and this is just a "coverup".. Wouldn't be the first time.

by nxy

6/8/2026 at 6:23:55 PM

A good first step, but the harm is already done when the data is gathered. Stalking should be illegal even if you don't sell the information you gathered, I don't want Toyota or GM or Google knowing where I've been either, not just their "partners", and it's long past the time the EULA loophole was closed. Contracts exist to serve society, not the other way around.

by like_any_other

6/9/2026 at 1:09:03 AM

Does this criminalize Strava?

by loeg

6/9/2026 at 1:21:30 AM

If Strava is sharing or reselling users GPS locations to third parties without user consent, yes.

by markerz

6/9/2026 at 1:45:09 AM

Why would it?

by ezfe

6/8/2026 at 6:03:59 PM

Will this have reach and teeth though?

I can imagine loopholes to this... nothing stops facebook/google from buying this data from companies not in Massachusetts? and facebook/google don't have to give advertisers the location information but can still use that information when determining the advertisement to return, right? In theory the big silicon valley "targets" of this bill don't actually have a huge incentive to give this data away, do they? They just need to be able to read/access it, which I don't think this law stops? Assuming the data broker is not doing business in Massachusetts itself

by ldoughty

6/8/2026 at 6:29:14 PM

> Will this have reach and teeth though?

It'll have reach because MA has a long-arm statute and there's a rich history of applying that statute in the context of Chapter 93.

It'll have teeth but probably not to the effect that you hope.

This statute was written such that only the Attorney General can bring action; see Section 10(b). This diverges from a long history in the Commonwealth of allowing private individuals to bring civil suits for most types of Chapter 93 violations.

As a result, I anticipate that the most impactful change will be in the quantity and frequency of political donations to Mass AG candidates (and in the case of contested primaries their aligned block of candidates up and down ticket).

Consumer protection laws should always provide for a private cause of action. Otherwise they just function as a mechanism for legalized corruption.

by fultonn

6/8/2026 at 7:17:47 PM

I don't disagree with the thrust of your criticism of the dynamic (especially long term). But there is a legitimate concern that the first test cases to hit the courts need to be quite unsympathetic egregious violators rather than surveillance dynamics that have been thoroughly normalized for decades. If people start bringing private suits against neighbors that have deployed Amazon surveillance cameras, "credit bureaus", private investigators, big tech surveillance companies directly (eg Google, and especially with weak legal arguments), it is likely to set some poor precedents and create political pushback.

by mindslight

6/8/2026 at 7:47:53 PM

Section 2 already limits applicability to persons collecting or processing data on not less than 60,000 consumers, so suits brought against neighbors would be (rightfully) dismissed.

The concern about poor precedent stemming from poor cases has some rational sense, but we have the benefit of experience. Empirically it just hasn't tended to play out like that in the case of consumer protection statutes in MA. One reason this doesn't happen in practice might be the limited bandwidth of the appellate process. The SJC could (and likely would) prioritize answering questions about the statute in the context of cases brought by the AG.

The longevity pro-consumer laws in MA provides some good empirical data that cuts against the concern about push-back.

by fultonn

6/9/2026 at 2:46:08 PM

I'll admit my examples were pretty weak.

What I see is this bill, while a fantastic development, is still just addressing the tip of an iceberg on an industry that has been festering for many decades now (I mean, the "Fair" Credit Reporting Act - aka regulatory capture by the early digital surveillance industry - was passed in 1970). So "pushback" doesn't necessarily mean this law being undone, but rather it ending up as the full amount of privacy we can expect rather than first step of a hopeful trend.

For example look at how many more rights the GDPR grants. If a GDPR-analog were on the table in the US, the entire surveillance industry would balk. And these days the surveillance industry is basically the bulk of our "economy" (ie stock market valuations). And given the way "our" government works, I wouldn't be terribly hopeful about the individual liberty side prevailing over entrenched interests. Which is why I'm making an argument for more of a gradual shift.

Now having said that, perhaps it makes more sense for each bit of legislation to bite off fewer rights (as I'd say this legislation does), while including a private right of action so that the rights it does grant are maximally enforced. Having glaring violations of the law-as-written just sit there unaddressed is certainly its own powerful momentum-killer.

by mindslight

6/8/2026 at 7:48:23 PM

Couldn't this be mitigated by, say, having the private right of action not start until a few years into the applicability of the law?

by kmeisthax

6/8/2026 at 6:33:45 PM

once you allow someone to read data, it has been given away.

even if its only retained until buffer refresh, its still given away.

if its read frombuffer space and transformed into a persistent structure, its a gift that indefinately keeps giving.

by rolph

6/8/2026 at 7:24:24 PM

but if facebook/google are the buyers, they do not violate this law... the law seems to focus on the sale & giving of this data... not the reception. This means that they just need a non-Massachusetts based data broker to sell them the data, and then they can store that data to make advertisement decisions (so long as they do not forward it along)

by ldoughty

6/9/2026 at 12:39:54 AM

The intent of the law is probably to prevent the data from being sold*, so if the big Silicon Valley ad companies aren’t selling it, they are already complying with the law, right? The goal isn’t to destroy companies that are already not doing the thing.

* to the extent to which MA can do that… I mean it’s one state, so we should judge it’s accomplishments by that standard. One possibility could be that the rest of them get their act together, or at least, every state that engineers are willing to live in does.

by bee_rider

6/8/2026 at 5:59:32 PM

This is good and all States should adopt some. Eventually I’d like to see one at the federal level that supersedes state level ones so that we don’t have to deal the the mess that is taxation across 50 states. A nice uniform privacy bill at the Fed level would be nice.

by mc32

6/8/2026 at 6:07:34 PM

This seems more symbolic since I don't see were the law has any teeth.

There is no fine nor imprisonment for failing to follow the law.

by yndoendo

6/8/2026 at 7:59:14 PM

No, we specifically DO NOT want uniformity. We want a minimum that states can go beyond.

In the current environment, tech companies have to bribe 50 states plus the federal legislature in order to block privacy bills. If you have federal preemption, then you just have to bribe Congress, because states can't pass ANY privacy laws whatsoever. And we already know the feds do not want a privacy law: the entire legality of the federal surveillance apparatus hinges on the fact that buying your data from third parties does not trip constitutional scrutiny. Preemption freezes the requirements in time so they will always be a few steps behind the TLAs[0].

The ideal is that every sovereign entity passes their own privacy law that applies to their territory, with a private right of action, and adtech companies are forced to adopt a "50 states legal" posture. This is, deliberately, a ratchet: it's easy for any state to require a higher standard but hard to get every state to reduce it, so privacy laws cannot be walked back in secret.

[0] Three Letter Agencies: CIA, FBI, NSA

by kmeisthax

6/9/2026 at 3:21:40 PM

> The ideal is that every sovereign entity passes their own privacy law that applies to their territory, with a private right of action, and adtech companies are forced to adopt a "50 states legal" posture. This is, deliberately, a ratchet: it's easy for any state to require a higher standard but hard to get every state to reduce it, so privacy laws cannot be walked back in secret.

You put this so well it kind of dislodged where I was coming from on my other comment you had responded to. I don't want to be disheartened and cynical. It's just hard to have seen this privacy issue openly festering for over two decades now, and think that things are ever going to change.

I think a private right of action with a two year delay would be great. And perhaps county DA's should be able to bring actions as well as the AG (legal policy adjacent actions aren't really in their wheelhouse, but it could help nudge the AG into action). I think the time period is a balance between giving the AG enough time to act (or be pressured into action), versus not making it too long so that illegal businesses can simply lobby to neuter the whole law before it actually goes into effect.

by mindslight

6/9/2026 at 1:21:00 PM

Criminals rejoice.

by cmxch

6/8/2026 at 6:10:10 PM

This is very exciting.

by josefritzishere

6/8/2026 at 6:28:04 PM

still waiting for any of the many existing privacy bills, worldwide, to start doing meaningful enforcement.

by john_strinlai

6/8/2026 at 7:31:56 PM

We need private right of action. That's the big thing holding up the sweeping Mass privacy law. The house supports a private right to action and the senate only wants the attorney general enforcing the law.

by Cider9986

6/8/2026 at 10:30:05 PM

California already has a million toothless laws. Anything without a private right of action may as well not exist.

by throwaway85825

6/9/2026 at 2:04:03 AM

Indeed, and I think possession of the information should be what's actionable.

by analog31

6/9/2026 at 3:38:19 PM

Do you have any links that elaborate on this? I haven't been following the Mass privacy law, but if this is true it seems like now is the time to pressure the state senate into adopting the private right of action.

by mindslight