United States of America: Rejected Act Relating to the Registration of Business Entities that Qualify as Data Brokers

On 23 April 2023, An Act Relating to the Registration of Business Entities that Qualify as Data Brokers (HB 1799) was rejected after failing to pass before the Washington legislative session expired.The Bill would have required all data brokers, defined as entities which would have sold or licensed personal data, to file for an annual registration with the Department of Licensing, before would have been allowed to operate as data brokers. Upon registration, the entity would have had to provide the Department of Licensing with information about the entity, as well as a declaration on whether individuals would have been able to opt out of either data collection, sale, or licensing of personal data by the entity. The entity would have also had to specify how the opt-out process would have worked and would have had to pay a fee. Personal data would have only been handled by data brokers without registration, among others. If the information had been publicly available, the information would have been required for health or safety purposes, or if the information would have been part of journals, books, or other written work. The result of the registration process would have had to be made publicly available by the Department of Licensing. If an entity had not followed the registration requirement, a civil penalty of a maximum of USD 500 would have been sanctioned by the Department of Licensing or USD 500 for each day the violation would have continued. The maximum amount an entity could have been fined in one calendar year would have been USD 10'000.