Legislation

The General Assembly passed legislation allowing health care providers to disclose a patient’s personal medical information to law enforcement under a variety of circumstances.

This year, the General Assembly dismantled the privacy of employees by permitting the random drug testing of any person working in the “highway maintenance industry,” from highway workers to receptionists.

Following the nationwide revelations that the federal government had obtained millions of cell phone information records from Verizon, the General Assembly failed to protect Rhode Islanders against rampant phone location tracking.

In March, the ACLU of RI testified before the House Health, Education and Welfare committee in opposition to legislation allowing for video and audio monitoring of nursing homes, including the bedrooms and bathrooms of residents.

The General Assembly considered, but took no action on, a pair of bills aimed at restricting the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, by law enforcement.

The ACLU testified in support of legislation barring law enforcement from searching the contents of a cell phone without first obtaining a warrant.

ACLU of RI-drafted legislation would have protected users’ private social media profiles from undue intrusion by barring schools and employers from requesting or requiring students’, employees’ or applicants’ social media passwords, or otherwise gaining access to their private social media accounts.

In February, the ACLU testified before the House Corporations committee in opposition to two bills sanctioning the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which are scanners placed on police cruisers and used to scan every license plate on the street.