ST PAUL, Minn. — Tech companies are constantly collecting data about who you are and where you are and using that treasure trove of private information to make money.
The Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act, currently debated at the Capitol, is designed to put you in control of how much of that information they can collect and sell. The legislation would require websites and online platforms to get your permission in advance to collect and sell your sensitive personal data and specific location, or to use that information to target you with advertising.
"The bill anticipates the advent of a universal opt-out mechanism built into web browsers where you could just check a box and the web browser would send a signal to the company saying this person never wants their data sold or used to target advertising," Rep. Steve Elkins, the Bloomington Democrat who is the lead author of the bill in the House, told reporters.
If the bill becomes law, it will be enforced by the Minnesota Attorney General's office. The legislation includes funding to pay for more attorneys in the AG's office to deal with the issues that arise as consumers begin using the new law.
Rep. Elkins said when he ran for reelection, he learned some alarming information from a vendor about how he could reach potential voters in his newly-drawn district.
"He said send us a list of the voters you want to reach with their addresses, and we have a partner vendor that has mapped just about every device in the country to the location where it spends the night," Elkins recalled.
"Basically, vendors have created a map of where every device in the country spends the night. So, our ads get sent to all of the devices that live at voters' addresses."
The legislation is patterned after laws already on the books in 15 other states that didn't wait for Congress to come up with a nationwide solution.
"While it would be absolutely preferable for something to happen on the federal level, so there's consistency across the country, we have found that sometimes Congress has a little difficulty getting on the same page and passing things," Sen. Bonnie Westlin, a Plymouth Democrat, explained.
Sen. Westlin is carrying the Senate version of the bill, which also gives consumers the right to request a copy of the biometric and geometric data already collected from them.
"The Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act gives Minnesotans rights over their data, the rights to access the data, to correct the data, any inaccuracies, and to delete their personal data, obtain a copy of their data, and to opt out of the sale of the data," Westlin told reporters.
"When Minnesotans engage with tech platforms, they deserve to know what data is being collected, where it is being stored, whether it is secure, and whether their data is being sold."
Elkins, who works in the IT industry, said tech companies are constantly mapping where you are by watching location-enabled apps on your smart phone.
"The phone in your pocket has two dozen different sensors in it, and it records your geolocation to seven digits of latitude and longitude, which is about this diameter," he said, as he picked up a coffee cup lid.
His bill would limit how specific tech companies can be with pinging your location without your permission. The acceptable distance, in terms of degrees of latitude and longitude, would be comparable to 100 yard — the length of a football field.
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