US to Impose Ban on Selling Smartphone Location Data for the First Time in History

According to a report, the state of Massachusetts is on the verge of implementing a groundbreaking law that could have significant implications for the US and the global community. This law, which would be the first of its kind in the country, aims to heavily restrict the buying and selling of smartphone location data. By prohibiting entities from purchasing consumer location data obtained from smartphones, Massachusetts would be pioneering an unprecedented move to curtail a billion-dollar industry, marking a potential turning point for the nation.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the state legislature held a hearing in June on a bill called the Location Shield Act. The draft law proposed curbing the collection and sale of location data collected from users’ mobile phones. In addition, the bill also proposes that even law enforcement authorities cannot access location data without permission. This would prohibit people from working in the data sharing space and would not be able to share location data without permission from the courts.

Smartphone data location

Smartphone location data is basically the user’s movement patterns as he or she moves anywhere with his or her phone. The data does not contain name, phone number or other identifying information, only information about the places where the phone has been and the route traveled (with time stamps).

However, the information also shows where the smartphone goes in the evening and where it is kept overnight, which makes it easy to get information about the person’s address or workplace. The same data can also be cross-referenced with other data sets to obtain more information about a specific user.

According to the report, the Massachusetts lawmaker’s move is part of a digital privacy wave that has swept the United States. As many as ten different states have enacted different privacy laws in the absence of a consistent national legislative framework.

But so far, no other state has tried to enact a law that brings a near-total ban on buying, selling or sharing mobile location data with a third party. Most states require express consent from the end user before collecting data, and outside of some legal restrictions, data brokers are free to sell the data.