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Privacy on the Map (Part 2): Progress, Pitfalls, and the Fight for Enforceable Location Data Protections

EFF — Deeplinks · · International · Surveillance & Civil Liberties

Five states — Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, and Virginia — have passed new laws restricting commercial location data practices, marking a measurable shift in how state legislatures are approaching location privacy. A policy analysis finds progress but also identifies gaps that leave enforceable protections incomplete.

Why this matters: Your location history is a detailed record of your life. Where you sleep, where you worship, which clinics you visit, who you spend time with. Companies have been buying and selling that data with almost no rules. Some states are finally pushing back. But partial rules with weak enforcement are not the same as real protection. The gap between a law that exists and a law that works is where the data broker industry lives. Watch whether these new state laws have actual teeth — who can enforce them, and what happens when a company breaks them.

Who should care: Lawyers · Compliance · Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy

This summary is AI-assisted and may contain errors. It is an original briefing to help you gauge significance quickly — not a reproduction of the source. Always read the linked original before relying on it. See our methodology.

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