Two Ohio legislators put forward a bill Monday that would protect data rights for Ohioans.
House Bill 376, introduced by State Reps. Rick Carfagna (R-Genoa Township) and Thomas Hall (R-Madison Twp.), would “establish data rights for Ohioans while requiring businesses to adhere to specified data standards,” according to the Ohio House of Representatives press release.
Under the bill also known as the Ohio Personal Privacy Act, businesses that qualify for the “data standards” are ones that have “$25 million or more gross revenue in Ohio or businesses that control or process large amounts of data,” the press release says.
This bill also encourages Ohio businesses to adopt the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Privacy Framework. The framework for NIST can “enable better privacy engineering practices that support privacy by design concepts and help organizations protect individuals’ privacy,” according to NIST.
If this bill were to become law, data rights for Ohioans would be created on what to do with their data. Certain things Ohio residents could possibly do include deleting personal data and telling businesses to not sell their data.
Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted, who supports this bill, said current federal and state laws do not protect people’s data privacy and date information rights.
“Without action in this space on the federal level, it’s important that our state take the lead,” he said. “The Ohio Personal Privacy Act implements the necessary tools to keep Ohioans’ data safe and gives them control over their digital presence.”
To help Ohioans, businesses in this bill would also have to provide privacy notices and give information on where people’s data is being sold.
The bill also would allow people who feel like their privacy rights are being violated to file a complaint with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. If a business is notified of a potential violation, it would have 30 days to fix the problem without any legal action taking place.
Carfangna said Ohio has an opportunity to make itself a technology leader on multiple fronts as the federal level lacks comprehensive policies on collection and personal information usage.
“House Bill 376 (the Ohio Personal Privacy Act) will balance reasonable privacy standards to protect Ohioans with less bureaucracy and regulation on businesses,” he said.
If this bill becomes law, Ohio would be the fourth state in America to enact data privacy laws.
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Zachery Schmidt is the Digital Editor of Star News Digital Media. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected]. Follow Zachery on Twitter @zacheryschmidt2.
