Washington state lawmakers are racing ahead on a new privacy bill that would cut off the sale of people’s precise phone-location data, taking direct aim at a booming commercial surveillance market. The timing is not an accident: advocates and reporters have shown that these data feeds can be quietly bought and, in some cases, tapped by federal agencies to map where people go.
Bill Would Bar Sale of ‘Precise’ Geolocation
Rep. Shelley Kloba’s consumer-data privacy proposal would treat precise geolocation as sensitive data and prohibit its sale, as reported by KUOW. The measure, filed as HB 1671, would also establish consumer rights, require companies to practice data minimization, and make violations enforceable under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, according to the bill text. HB 1671 would require data controllers to limit what they collect and to disclose which categories of data they gather.
How ‘Precise’ Is Defined - and Where Others Have Acted
Advocates and some bills define “precise” geolocation as roughly the difference between an address and a block - about 1,700 to 1,750 feet - a threshold lawmakers use to separate routine services from fine-grained tracking, according to state privacy analyses such as Cybersecurity Law Report. As outlined by Consumer Reports, Maryland and Oregon already restrict sales of that level of location data, and Consumer Reports recently released a model State Location Privacy Act.
Washington has already drawn a hard line around health-related locations. The state bars geofencing around clinics and other in-person providers under the My Health My Data Act, which prevents the use of virtual boundaries to identify or target people visiting health facilities, as explained by legal analysts at Stoel Rives.
Surveillance Purchases That Sparked the Urgency
The latest push to block sales of precise location data did not come out of nowhere. Documents released by the ACLU show that components of the Department of Homeland Security bought bulk cellphone location information, according to the ACLU. Investigative reporting by 404 Media detailed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement purchased access to tools that can monitor phones across whole neighborhoods and trace device movements without a warrant.
Who Is Pushing Back
Business and tech groups - including state chambers of commerce and wireless and ad-tech trade associations - are urging lawmakers to hit the brakes. They warn that a broad ban could interfere with fraud prevention and with useful, real-time services. Industry witnesses have argued that consumers could miss relevant marketing or safety alerts if location signals are restricted, according to committee testimony and reporting by CalMatters. Privacy advocates counter that those conveniences do not outweigh the risk of exposing people who visit sensitive places like clinics, shelters or houses of worship.
Legal Stakes for Washingtonians
If HB 1671 becomes law, violations would be treated as unfair practices under the Consumer Protection Act, and the Attorney General would have an opportunity to seek cures before suing, the bill report says. Other states’ laws that ban selling precise geolocation use different enforcement structures and penalties and offer a roadmap for Washington, policy analysis shows (Cybersecurity Law Report).
For residents, that could mean ad-tech firms walling off Washington users from certain data practices or changing how apps request permissions and share location data. Privacy groups argue those shifts would be a net gain for safety and civil liberties.
What Comes Next
The Kloba bill has already seen multiple committee hearings, and advocates say the model language from Consumer Reports makes it easier for lawmakers to adapt similar measures this year, so Olympia is likely to see more debate. For now, privacy groups recommend that people limit background location sharing in apps and regularly review which services have access to their phone’s precise location.
Residents can track the bill’s status and upcoming public hearings through the state legislature’s information site at leg.wa.gov.
