EPIC Testifies in Support of Data Broker Registry in Maryland

EPIC Deputy Director Caitriona Fitzgerald testified before the Maryland House Economic Matters Committee this week in support of HB 1089, the Building Information Guardrails Data Act of 2025.

The bill creates a data broker registry in Maryland and taxes the income of data brokers to fund various government services, including enforcement of the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act by the Attorney General’s Office.

EPIC testified in support of the bill, noting that states should be doing all they can to make data brokering as limited as possible. Maryland made great strides towards that with the passage of the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act last year, which banned the sale of sensitive data and limited the amount of data companies can collect about us. 

To further protect consumers from the harms of data brokers, the EPIC recommended that the Committee amend HB 1089 to give Marylanders the ability to use a centralized deletion mechanism to express their preference to data brokers that they want their data deleted, as California did when it passed the DELETE Act.