Legislation

In June, the House passed legislation requiring health care providers to report alleged incidents of elder abuse to law enforcement, furthering a trend in recent years of the General Assembly approving legislation weakening the state’s health care confidentiality laws.

Legislation creating a task force on employee misclassification and the underground economy contained one of the more dangerous anti-privacy provisions of the year.

In June, the House passed legislation governing the transmission of mental health civil certification records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the database used to determine who is eligible to purchase a weapon under state and federal laws.

Part of a comprehensive package of legislation by the ACLU aimed at protecting privacy, this legislation would have barred law enforcement from obtaining cell phone location information from telecommunications companies without a warrant, except in certain emergency situations.

Legislation hoped to clarify the acceptable use of ALPR technology, including for locating missing persons and identifying vehicles belonging to individuals with outstanding felony warrants, and place limits on the retention of data collected by ALPRs.

Back for a third time was an ACLU-drafted bill requiring law enforcement obtain a warrant prior to conducting a search of any cell phone.

ACLU-drafted legislation will protect 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 and Senate Judiciary committees in support of legislation restricting the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, by law enforcement.