Subcommittee advances bill to create an Attorney General coordination function for technology-related consumer harms

The House Communications, Technology and Innovation Communications Subcommittee moved to report House Bill 12-50, a Section 1 bill authored by Delegate Anthony that would direct the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to establish a coordination function for technology-related consumer harms.

Delegate Anthony said the bill establishes an intake, triage and referral point within the OAG to handle emergent technology complaints, creates cross-agency communications to reduce siloed responses, and requires an annual governance briefing to the General Assembly so lawmakers stay informed about trends and gaps. He described the measure as a governance framework that relies on the Attorney General’s existing enforcement authority rather than creating a new regulatory regime.

Anthony emphasized the bill is intentionally scaled to operate within current authority and can be phased in depending on funding. He said the measure aligns with research from the Joint Commission on Technology and Science (JCOT) and a JCOT-endorsed budget amendment but is not dependent on a budget allocation.

Delegate Maguire asked whether the Attorney General’s Office had capacity to take on the role; Anthony answered that prior, more expansive proposals informed the current, scaled approach and reiterated the bill’s phased implementation model and consumer-facing intake proposal. The clerk opened and closed the roll after a motion to report; the transcript does not include a clear numeric tally for the vote in the record.

The bill was moved and seconded to report from the subcommittee and is now slated for further committee consideration; the transcript records the roll being closed but does not provide a final vote total in the spoken record.