Worcester Telegram & Gazette | Backers call for banning sale of cellphone location data in Mass. Here's why

By Kinga Borondy

Originally published in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette

BOSTON ― A bill that would prohibit the sale of cellphone location data, collected endlessly from users of myriad apps, would protect all Massachusetts residents, its supporters say, but would especially benefit the most vulnerable.

Justin Sherman, who leads the data brokerage project at Duke University, compared the data collection to having someone "follow you around 24/7 with a notepad, writing down every stop you make, when you stoop to tie a shoelace, go into a store. Some location trackers can pinpoint which floor of a mall you’re on, which store you're in and even how long you linger in a certain section."

"The apps collect a crazy amount of information, thousands of data points," Sherman said. App developers, he said, face financial incentives to sell the information to brokers and maximize their profits from a service.

The companion bills, filed by Sen. Cynthia Creem, D-Newton, and Rep. Kate Libber-Garabedian, D-Melrose, would specifically ban the sale of all cellphone location data as a way to protect consumer privacy.

“That the cell phones can track an individual’s movements makes me so nervous it made me want to throw my phone away,” said Creem in presenting her bill to colleagues. “It can track where you go, where you seek health care, can pinpoint your religious affiliations. As a Jewish person at a time of rising antisemitism, it made me nervous that my information was being collected.”

The legislation was originally filed early last year, and would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to enact a total ban on selling cellphone location data.

Consumers would still be able to use apps to plot their upcoming trips, get the weather, count their steps, and open Google maps. However the sale to data brokers of the collected information about a user’s location, in real time and historically, would be illegal under the law.

“It’s a protective issue, providing safeguards to allow people to move about freely in society,” Creem said. “This bill impacts all of us.”

The proposal has been endorsed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Reproductive Equity Now, among 20 other groups. The organizations deem passing the measure is necessary to protect Massachusetts consumers as well as reproductive care providers from being targeted for persecution through measures enacted in other states.

“Massachusetts cannot afford to sit on its defenses,” in connection with reproductive health care, said Claire Teylouni, of Reproductive Equity Now. “This is lifesaving care.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, 21 states have passed full or partial abortion bans.

Some states have sought to crack down on people traveling for abortions to other states where it remains legal.

“There are enormous threats to those coming to Massachusetts seeking health care and to the providers of care,” Teylouni said. Massachusetts, she said, must protect those providers from harassment and prosecution under laws enacted in other states.

Kade Crockford of the ACLU said 92% of Massachusetts residents polled in 2023 support banning cellphone location sales. Crockford cited a 2018 Supreme Court case, Carpenter v United States, that revealed the extent of data collected by cellphones.

“It tells a story of every person so revealing that it must be warrant-protected if the information is sought by the federal government,” Crockford said. “Hundreds of applications are being developed and not regulated; they Hoover up information and sell it on the open market.”

Sherman warned against being tricked by what he called “the myth of consumer consent.”

Consumers, Sherman said, don’t read privacy policies, and if they were to, they could spend hundreds of hours a year reading through the purposefully obscure language. Even if brokers say the data is anonymous, it’s not hard to link a person to a location, he said.

The bill reflects “the digital nature of our lives,” Lipper-Garabedian said, adding Massachusetts must protect consumers’ right to privacy, to ensure people are secure in their choices and able to life a life of autonomy. “Massachusetts would lead the nation if this measure were to pass."