
As Congress struggles with tech legislation, states aim to regulate online privacy
As Congress struggles with tech legislation, states aim to regulate online privacy

A lot of the rules regarding our online privacy, protections for kids in the digital world or guardrails for artificial intelligence are determined by which state you live in.
States are moving to act as Congress struggles to respond nationally to rapid changes in technology. However, the tech industry may have a bigger voice for itself in Washington, if early indications in this new administration play out.
To discuss, senior Washington correspondent Kimberly Adams joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Sabri Ben-Achour: So some new laws kicked in this year in a few states related to online privacy. What kind of changes are we seeing at the state level?
Kimberly Adams: So several states enacted laws trying to protect residents’ information from things like data brokers, and also play stricter rules on how businesses protect the personal data of the people who live in the state. So, we saw laws like this kick in at the start of the year in New Hampshire, Nebraska, Delaware, Iowa and New Jersey, and a few more are going to be coming later this year. Ray Brescia teaches at Albany Law School, and he just put out a book “The Private is Political: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism.”
Ray Brescia: It’s a slow drum beat of states starting to consider ways to protect citizens’ rights. And it’s a very interesting development, and I think that what we’re likely to see from it is a greater push at the national level for a national privacy law.
Adams: And Brescia expects that that push is going to increasingly start coming from the tech industry looking for, at least, a national baseline.
Ben-Achour: These are designed to protect privacy of people, but at the same time, a few states have new laws that restrict or regulate what content residents can access online.
Adams: Exactly, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee all have laws starting in January that require age verification to access sites with a certain amount of adult content, and that makes more than a dozen states nationwide that make people wanting to access these sites prove their age in some way. Now, of course, people are finding ways around it. Business Insider reports that after the law kicked in in Florida, demand for VPNs — virtual private networks that let you appear like you’re in another state — surged by about 1,000%.
Ben-Achour: Because people may not always want to be on record as visiting XYZ site?
Adams: Exactly, they want to hide their identity.
Ben-Achour: Now, one of these laws that you’re talking about is actually at the Supreme Court right now. What can you tell us about that?
Adams: Yeah. I mean, opponents have been suing to block many of these laws at the state level, but Texas’ law, which began in 2023, has made it all the way to the Supreme Court. That case is called Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, and groups representing adult entertainment industry businesses, plus some civil rights groups, are hoping to convince the court that these age verification laws are invasive and that they violate the First Amendment right to free speech. And the arguments in that case have already begun.
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