General Law Committee advances broad consumer-privacy bill to the floor

Senate Bill 4, a multipart consumer-privacy measure, cleared the General Law Committee on a motion to send the bill to the floor, after members debated how the statute would be implemented and how much it would cost state agencies and businesses.

Sponsor overviewed the measure as a package that creates a data-broker registry with a one-stop delete mechanism patterned after California, requires an estimate on how much of a vehicle’s price is attributable to tariffs, narrows the scope of algorithmic-pricing disclosures (only when algorithms raise prices), bans sale of geolocation data and tightens rules on facial-recognition uses and license-plate readers. "Senate Bill 4 does a number of different things," said Ron, the sponsor’s presenter, listing registry, dynamic-pricing disclosure and plate-reader restrictions.

Why it matters: supporters said the bill expands consumer control over personal data and brings Connecticut into alignment with other states that have created registries and deletion portals; opponents warned about administrative costs, enforcement burdens and unintended consequences for legitimate uses of data.

Members repeatedly asked about implementation. Representative Aker pressed the sponsor on Section 10’s tariff labeling: "How does somebody establish a tariff component?" she asked, noting cars are assembled from parts sourced globally and that estimating an attributable tariff could be burdensome for dealers. The sponsor said the tariff figure would be a best estimate modeled on New York's law and suggested implementation timing could be adjusted to mitigate burdens.

On the registry and deletion portal, the sponsor said the expectation is the number of registrants would be in the hundreds — "not in the thousands" — and that registration fees would offset start-up costs. The sponsor also said California’s mechanisms are available to reduce development expenses.

The committee left several implementation details to be worked out in collaboration with agencies. Chairs and members committed to follow-up language and a floor amendment to reflect feedback from the attorney general’s office and affected stakeholders.

The committee voted to send SB4 JFS to the floor (motion recorded in committee). The measure will move next to floor consideration, where implementation language and technical fixes are expected to be negotiated.