Vermont committee hears split testimony on H.342 data‑broker removal rules, experts urge narrower ‘Daniel’s law’ approach

Members of the Vermont House Committee on Commerce & Economic Development heard two hours of testimony March 13 on H.342, a bill that would let people petition data brokers and other holders of searchable databases to remove protected personal information.

Richard Varn, executive director of the Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access and a former Iowa state chief information officer, told the committee that the bill’s current language is “very broad” and could require removal of identifiers used for routine identity verification. “Redaction of a employee address is an ineffective response and amounts to security theater while doing real harm to the many beneficial uses of public records and public oversight,” Varn said. He urged the panel to consider narrower statutory designs used in other states, commonly called Daniel’s laws, and to pair those with operational threat‑management measures.

The testimony came as state lawmakers weigh how to balance the privacy and safety concerns of judges, law enforcement officers and other public employees against public access and commercial uses of data. Varn warned that H.342 as drafted could unintentionally disable systems that rely on unique identifiers for things such as auto safety recalls and fraud prevention, and he recommended exemptions patterned on existing federal laws like the Drivers Privacy Protection Act.

Varn told the committee the draft’s definitions would treat information…