Vermont’s House of Representatives and the State Senate passed a new privacy law, HB 121, in May 2024. The bill has been sent to Governor Phil Scott for his signature. You can find the text of the bill here. If enacted, some provisions will become effective July 1, 2024 and other provisions one year later.
The Vermont bill defines biometric identifiers more broadly than does the Illinois Biometric Identifier Privacy Act. Illinois defines a biometric identifier to be a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry, and goes to great lengths to explicitly exclude other kinds of biometrics. Vermont, on the other hand, defines a biometric identifier as
unique biometric data generated from measurements or technical analysis of human body characteristics used by the owner or licensee of the data to identify or authenticate the consumer, including a fingerprint, retina or iris image, or other unique physical representation or digital representation of biometric data
and does not explicitly exclude any kind of biometric data.
Under the Vermont law, a consumer may request that an individual data broker, or all data brokers doing business in Vermont
- stop collecting the consumer’s data,
- delete all data in its possession about the consumer; or
- stop selling the consumer’s data.
If you’d like help with data privacy, under state laws such as Vermont, or federal laws such as HIPAA, give us a call.
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