CT Senate Passes Consumer Data Privacy Bill

The Connecticut Senate passed sweeping consumer data privacy legislation Thursday, giving residents new tools to scrub their personal information from the internet and placing fresh restrictions on the businesses that profit from selling that data.

The 31-4 vote on Senate Bill 4 capped another marathon session on Beacon Square, coming just two days after senators spent hours debating and ultimately passing a separate artificial intelligence bill. The back-to-back technology debates reflect how aggressively Connecticut lawmakers are moving to regulate a digital economy that has largely outpaced government oversight.

S.B. 4 focuses primarily on data brokers, defined under the bill as any business that sells or licenses personal consumer data to another party. The legislation would create a state registry for these brokers, impose mandatory fees on registry participants, and direct the Department of Consumer Protection to build a deletion mechanism allowing residents to request their information be removed from broker databases and websites.

The bill also addresses geolocation data, facial recognition technology, and surveillance pricing tools, adding layers of protection that advocates say are long overdue.

Sen. James Maroney, a Milford Democrat who co-chairs the General Law Committee and wrote the bill, said the core goal is straightforward. “We want to give people the ability, if they choose, to delete their information from data brokers so it cannot be used,” Maroney said.

The legislation builds on the Connecticut Data Privacy Act, passed in 2023, which established baseline consumer data rights and laid out responsibilities for organizations that collect information online. Connecticut was the fifth state in the country to enact that kind of comprehensive privacy framework, a distinction that has given the legislature more confidence in pushing further.

S.B. 4 drew clear inspiration from California’s Delete Act, which requires data brokers to comply with consumer deletion requests starting in August. Connecticut’s bill follows a similar model, while incorporating provisions pulled from other proposals heard this session, including House Bill 5128.

The 31-4 margin suggests broad bipartisan support, but the floor debate was not smooth. Opponents raised concerns that have become familiar in Hartford this week: that regulating fast-moving technology risks burdening local businesses before lawmakers fully understand the consequences.

That tension played out similarly Tuesday, when S.B. 5, the artificial intelligence bill, passed 32-4 after hours of debate. Both votes show a Senate willing to absorb that criticism and move forward anyway, betting that the costs of inaction are higher than the risks of imperfect regulation.

Supporters frame both bills as part of a coordinated push to protect Connecticut residents from the more predatory corners of the modern data economy. Maroney and his allies have described S.B. 4 as a tool to shield residents from scammers and other bad actors who exploit personal data harvested without consumers’ knowledge or meaningful consent.

The stakes are real in a county like Fairfield, where residents range from some of the wealthiest households in the country to working-class families in Bridgeport who are among the most vulnerable targets for data-driven fraud and financial scams. A Bridgeport resident whose phone number, home address, and financial history can be purchased for a few dollars from a data broker faces very different exposure than most people realize.

Federal action on data privacy has stalled for years, leaving states to fill the gap. Connecticut has now staked out a position near the front of that pack, with two significant tech regulation bills passing the Senate in a single week.

S.B. 4 now heads to the House, where it will face its own round of scrutiny. If it passes there and earns the governor’s signature, Connecticut will join a growing cluster of states pushing back against an industry that has operated with minimal oversight since it emerged.

The deletion mechanism Maroney describes may be the most tangible benefit for ordinary residents. The question now is whether the House moves quickly enough to put that tool in people’s hands before the summer.