Senate Bill 5 / Chamber Supports
Senate Bill 5 (on consumer data protection) just passed the House unanimously (98-0) with no second reading amendments and is now eligible for a concurrence vote in the Senate.
To recap the latest on the bill: Last Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee passed unanimously an amended version of this year’s consumer data privacy legislation, Senate Bill 5, authored by Sen. Liz Brown (R-Fort Wayne) and sponsored by Rep. Matt Lehman (R-Berne).
When the bill was heard several weeks ago, Lehman and legal counsel from the attorney general’s office took to the podium and suggested several changes they would like to see via a committee amendment. Consequently, Committee Chairman Jerry Torr (R-Carmel) held the bill.
Despite the Chamber working closely with Rep. Lehman and the attorney general’s office over the past few weeks and arguing to keep the bill clean and free of any substantive amendments, it remained a mystery what we would see when the amendment was released last Monday night. Fortunately, it was relatively benign except for one section that would have placed an undue burden on companies with respect to how often they conduct a legal, technical and financial assessment of their data management. However, Rep. Lehman agreed to remove this mandate before the committee casted its vote.
Senate Bill 5 has been praised by Republicans, Democrats, employers and consumer groups as striking the right balance between consumer privacy rights and business interests.
