A bill introduced in the legislature could create a new framework for how online companies can collect and share user information.
State Sen. Angel Charley (D - Acoma) announced the Community and Health Information Safety and Privacy Act (CHISPA) this week alongside supporters, who call themselves the CHISPA Coalition. The act will require online for-profit entities to obtain consent before collecting user information that is nonessential to their business.
“Today, New Mexico draws a clear line: our health, our bodies, our children, our lives, they are not for sale,” said Charley.
The legislation, SB 53, aims to make online privacy the default. People would be allowed to opt in to their data being collected, but companies would be required to make notices conspicuous. The only other time online platforms would be allowed to collect user data would be if it was integral to the function of the website or service.
Additionally, CHISPA would allow users to correct the data collected about them, delete their existing data, and refuse it being collected at all.
Tatiana Prieto, police advocate with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, said that this law, if passed, would return digital autonomy to where it belongs.
“These solutions will place control back in our hands, not the hands of corporations, data brokers or even hostile government actors,” Prieto said.
Charley and members of the CHISPA coalition are specifically concerned with biometrics and health data being collected and used by entities to preemptively raise costs for services like health care.
“My mother, who's from the Pueblo Pintado [a Navajo community in Northwest New Mexico], taught me that protection is a collective responsibility,” Charley Said. “Every day we delay, someone's safety is compromised. Inaction is not neutral. It has real world consequences.”
Companies that don’t comply could receive a $2,500 civil penalty for every person harmed by negligence or a $7,500 civil penalty for every person harmed by intentionally skirting the law.
The Committee’s Committee in the Senate has reported the bill to be germane, and the bill is now waiting to be heard in the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee.
