ATLANTA — Attorneys from the ACLU, ACLU of Georgia, and Free Press Action spoke out against a consumer privacy bill (Senate Bill 473) that aims to protect people’s privacy, but falls short of its intended purpose. SB 473 favors protecting big technology companies rather than the privacy rights of Georgians.
Recording of the press conference:
Privacy statement. This embed will serve content from youtube-nocookie.com.
Quotes
Andrea Young, Executive Director, ACLU of Georgia:
“Georgia families deserve to have their faceprints, voice prints and fingerprints protected, not sold to the highest bidder. SB 473 fails to protect Georgia families and it fails to protect ethical companies from unfair competition. We can do better.”
Christopher Bruce, Policy Director, ACLU of Georgia:
“This has opened the door to invasive surveillance, malicious targeting, and advertising that is alarmingly discriminatory against communities of color, especially in the Atlanta region. The ACLU of Georgia advocates for a legislative approach that places the responsibility of privacy protections squarely on the companies that are profiting from your data.”
Ben Lynde, Policy Counsel, ACLU of Georgia:
“For the past two years, the ACLU of Georgia has been working with legislators to inform state leaders about the dangers of unrestrained collection, sale, use, and distribution of our biometric information. This is information like our fingerprints, our eye patterns, our facial geometry, and our voice patterns. It's the physical characteristics that make us, us.”
Cody Venzke, Senior Policy Counsel Surveillance, Privacy, Technology, ACLU:
“Unfortunately, SB 473 will not provide meaningful protection for Georgians’ privacy, but will instead be business as usual for big tech companies and data brokers alike. It’s part of a larger trend to entrench big data’s practices that have already been in place and have already harmed Georgians and Americans everyday.”
Nora Benavidez, Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights, Free Press Action:
“Efforts to rein in what private companies do with — whether they collect, retain, sell, or otherwise analyze our data — somehow doesn't feel like it affects us. And yet, it is impossible to be a modern citizen of the world and not have some form of a digital footprint. Everything we do, we are giving information, whether it is our location based on our Uber pickup, whether it is the ads targeting us based on behavior, and likes or search terms that we've put into Google.
