Ohio House Privacy Bill Passes Panel on Partisan Vote

An Ohio House panel split by party as it narrowly advanced a comprehensive privacy bill Wednesday. The Government Oversight Committee voted 7-5 for HB-376 at the measure’s fifth hearing before the panel. All Democratic members voted no. Chairman Shane Wilkin (R) ruled as out of order an amendment by ranking member Richard Brown (D), who sought to remove a restriction on private lawsuits and language giving exclusive enforcement authority to the state attorney general. HB-376 can now be scheduled for a floor vote. In Connecticut, 19 Senate Democrats including Sen. Martin Looney and Majority Leader Bob Duff introduced a one-page privacy bill (SB-6) to raise funding to the attorney general’s office “to increase efforts to protect consumer personal information and data from unwanted sale and dissemination.” Edits to Virginia’s privacy law advanced Tuesday. The House Commerce Committee voted 21-1 for HB-1259, saying data about race, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship and certain other things is sensitive only “when used to make a decision that results in legal or similarly significant effects concerning a consumer.” The Finance and Appropriations Committee voted 13-2 for SB-534 to authorize the AG to pursue actual damages to consumers if a data controller or processor continues to violate the privacy law after the 30-day right to cure ends or if it breaches an express written statement it gave the AG. Also, it would clarify that political organizations are nonprofits exempt from the act. The AG may decide if a cure is possible, it said. And the bill would abolish the consumer privacy fund, placing all money collected by enforcement instead in a different state trust fund. The Florida House Commerce Committee plans a Thursday hearing on a comprehensive privacy bill (HB-9), resurrected from a failed 2021 bill, by Rep. Fiona McFarland (D). A New York state privacy bill advanced Tuesday (see 2202080051).