AUGUSTA, Maine — Democrats in the Maine Senate voted Thursday to change a sweeping data privacy bill to exempt political groups and allow them to keep collecting high volumes of consumer data that businesses would not be able to have.
The proposed change was filed Thursday by Sen. Anne Carney, D-Cape Elizabeth, who co-chairs the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee. Democrats muscled the change through the chamber in a 18-16 vote despite Sens. Joe Baldacci of Bangor and Craig Hickman of Winthrop voting with Republicans. It faces further action in both chambers.
Maine’s bill would be perhaps the most sweeping data privacy bill passed in any state so far. Carney’s amendment was a notable example of lawmakers carving out their own activities from a bill that has been opposed by many Maine businesses who say it will effectively ban online advertising targeted at certain demographics that companies rely on.
Carney filed the amendment on political groups to “ensure the language reflects the original intent of the bill,” a spokesperson said in an email. It prompted a heated floor debate, with Republicans arguing that the chamber shouldn’t be voting on the change so quickly.
“We can’t pass laws that we exempt politicians from. None of us came down here for that,” Baldacci said. “If we’re going to pass a law, we need to live by it.”
The bill from Rep. Amy Kuhn, D-Falmouth, would grant Mainers extensive rights over their personal information while imposing strict data minimization, security and transparency obligations on businesses operating here. Under most circumstances, the bill would apply to businesses that process the personal information of 35,000 or consumers. Nonprofits, governments and tribes would be exempt.
Features of Maine’s bill are relatively common across the 20 states to pass comprehensive data privacy laws. But most of those states allow consumers to opt into data collection, whereas Kuhn’s bill would not. Consumers would also be able to know exactly to whom businesses sell data. Most of the other states allow them to only know categories of businesses.
On the floor, Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Orono, invoked his 11-year-old twins who are just starting to use the internet, saying the lack of existing protections are “stunning.”
“The underlying bill here will finally minimize what’s collected about them, their lives, their health, their location and protect them from misuse of that data,” he said.
Two different types of data privacy bills have been jousting for support in the Maine Legislature. Kuhn’s is an aggressive version that is backed by civil liberties advocates and opposed by many businesses, while lawmakers killed a rival proposal last year that follows many of the laws in other states and is backed by tech companies.
L.L. Bean and HospitalityMaine, an advocacy group for hotels and restaurants, have been among the more prominent opponents of Kuhn’s bill and a similar one in the past Legislature. The latter group said last year that the current bill would make Maine “an outlier.”
The Portland Sea Dogs, the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, rely on targeted ads that help nudge tourists visiting Maine toward games, Jesse Scaglion, the team’s general manager, said. He said the team would be constrained in seeking new customers, putting the team at a disadvantage compared with those in other states.
“The amendment also raises questions for me,” Scaglion said. “If the bill were truly about broadly protecting Mainers, it wouldn’t need a carve-out.”