Wyoming legislators are working on a bill to give Wyomingites property rights over their own personal data \u2014 and another to restrict license plate reader usage. “It would be far and away the strongest privacy right on the planet,\u201d said a lawmaker.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
By Clair McFarland<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wyoming legislators say they\u2019re working on a groundbreaking bill to give Wyomingites property rights over their own personal data \u2014 and another bill to restrict license plate reader data usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vow intersects with rising concerns about license plate reader cameras like Flock, Motorola and other brands operating in some Wyoming communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It also follows eight years of a tech-oriented legislative committee\u2019s work to safeguard people\u2019s personal data from being indiscriminately sold on internet channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both bills are set for a more thorough hearing at the University of Wyoming during the Sept. 28-29 meeting of the Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it passes, the data privacy bill would be \u201cthe first of its kind in the world,\u201d Committee Co-Chair Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, told his colleagues during a Wednesday meeting in Casper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing even close. It would be far and away the strongest privacy right on the planet,\u201d said Rothfuss. \u201cI\u2019d love to be the state that does it, if we can get there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Rothfuss warned the other lawmakers to prepare for immense backlash from the tech private sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we implement it, candidly, it will make a lot of companies mad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of that fury descended on the public comment segment of Wednesday\u2019s meeting. Rather, a few proponents offered suggestions and feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s because this was only the unveiling of the bill, said Rothfuss in a Thursday phone interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He said he\u2019s spent significant time this year tuning the bill, titled the Wyoming Personal Data Ownership Act, to account for property-rights scenarios across the legal spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unique because rather than codify consumer protections pertaining to social media or other vendors\u2019 products, it proclaims that a person\u2019s data is his or her own property, said Rothfuss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That means the government\u2019s request to use someone\u2019s data would function like an easement; a private company would have to get permission to borrow it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUnauthorized processing or possession of personal data is an interference with the data owner\u2019s exclusive rights and a concrete and particularized injury,\u201d says the bill draft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those breaches resemble trespass or conversion, the draft adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill contains carveouts as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, a media outlet could still use a photograph of someone in reporting. People can use available data in communication, commentary, criticism, analysis, scholarship, indexing, discovery, preservation, or creating expressive work, under the bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But none of those uses could involve \u201ccommercial exploitation\u201d of individualized information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sensitive data would fall under a more stringent category than personal data. Some of that, like genetic and neural data, and personal data for kids under 13, would be barred from use as a \u201ccommercial instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n People\u2019s biometric identifiers and precise geolocation couldn\u2019t be used without affirmative consent, and then for no more than one year. The government would have to get a warrant on probable cause to access those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People\u2019s data on personal health, religious beliefs, political affiliation, financial accounts and any personal data of teens would require affirmative consent and be capped at a year\u2019s use as well. But the government would only need a \u201ccourt order on judicial review\u201d for access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All other personal data could be used for up to two years but not retained for more than three years, and could be pulled into the legal process through a subpoena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People could demand companies delete their data \u201cat any time\u201d if this bill passed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If an active access authority or a law precluded that, the entity using the data would have to let the person know within 30 days of the demand for deletion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The committee\u2019s co-chair from the state House side, Republican Rep. Daniel Singh of Cheyenne, told Rothfuss on Wednesday that he supports the groundbreaking bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Singh presented a bill that sought to restrict license plate reader usage as well as biometric and geolocation data usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the bill as drafted Wednesday, law enforcement agencies could only access biometric or geolocation data for investigating violent felonies, upon probable cause; helping to find a missing or endangered person; or helping to identify a person believed to be dead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All those causes would still require a warrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Law enforcement agency representatives opposed the bill vocally, with most lamenting that all those topics were lumped into one bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Singh acknowledged the bill is broad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think we\u2019re actually holding in our hand, like, four or five different bills,\u201d he said. \u201cWe may need to divide and conquer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, suggested tackling the license plate reader controversies this year, and addressing the biometric data part until a later session cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rothfuss agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Commander Ryan Cox had listed numerous active, and some mandated, uses for biometric data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Law enforcement agencies take fingerprints and palm prints when registering sex offenders. Fingerprints are part of background checks for numerous entities, including those bringing in volunteers or employees to work with kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cox noted that in disaster scenarios like floods and tornadoes, law enforcement wouldn\u2019t be able to get a warrant to identify a decedent as the bill contemplates, because those aren\u2019t crime scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sheridan Police Chief Travis Koltiska said that a lot of crimes not classed as violent felonies are still considered public safety risks, like stalking, domestic violence, protection order violations fraud and identity theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cox referenced child pornography crimes as well, which, though \u201chorrific,\u201d aren\u2019t classed as violent felonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Devon Brubaker, director at Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport, said airports will use license plate readers \u2014 but not tap them into the larger LPR networks lately causing concern \u2014 for parking verification uses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re also trending toward using biometric data, and may need to use it to comply with U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal safety requirements, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rothfuss told law enforcement agency representatives that his key concern is what private companies are doing with the license plate reader location data that they gather for law enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour mission is to serve and protect. Their mission is to make money off data,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s our challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Thompson, director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, quipped that \u201cmight be why some of them are offering a very cheap service to law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rothfuss parried: \u201cYou\u2019re either the customer or you\u2019re the product.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n James Halverson, deputy state director for Americans for Prosperity, acknowledged that the bill needs work, but said his group is in favor of the concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, worried aloud that the Legislature could run afoul of constitutional provisions by restricting private companies\u2019 data-gathering ability altogether. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This fell under the context of location points and vehicle images shot by license plate reader cameras. Crago gave the example of trying to stop a person sitting with a camera, filming activity on a public highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can limit the government from contracting with those third parties, but I question, can we constitutionally limit the third party from recording the data, keeping the data \u2014 and if so, what does that look like?\u201d asked Crago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rothfuss referenced the property rights bill he presented at that meeting, saying that could be a \u201chook\u201d to protecting data, \u201cbut it takes a couple of interesting steps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is promising, but there are too many captured lawmakers in the Wyoming state legislature with too much money behind them. The megacorps abusing our data, along with the federal government, are not going to let this happen without strong and cunning resistance. And though a supporter of law enforcement, I’m deeply disturbed that they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-wyoming"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18046,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18045\/revisions\/18046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wyoming](\"https:\/\/cowboystatedaily.imgix.net\/Chris-Rothfuss-7.16.26.jpg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&q=75&auto=format%2Ccompress\")
Data Would Be Your Property<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Some Carveouts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Next Up, License Plate Readers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Are Private Companies Doing?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n