Senate Passes Enhanced Consumer Privacy Bill; Prohibits Targeted Ads to Known Minors and Geofencing of Health Facilities

The Senate amended and passed H121, a broad consumer‑privacy bill that includes a specialized children's privacy code and new prohibitions on certain data practices. The floor amendment harmonized data‑privacy provisions with health‑related HIPAA exclusions and added protections for minors.

Senator from Chittenden Southeast, presenting the amendment, highlighted several changes: harmonized definitions for hybrid entities and covered business, an expanded sensitive‑data definition to include political affiliation and menstrual cycle, and stronger restrictions on geofencing and targeted advertising directed at known minors. The senator summarized the kids' code additions as prohibiting controllers from processing a known minor’s personal data for targeted advertising and forbidding geofencing at reproductive or gender‑affirming health facilities.

On the floor the presenter said the committee's changes were designed to preserve HIPAA protections for health data while ensuring that non‑HIPAA data could be governed under the privacy law. Supporters said the changes protect minors and reproductive‑health patients from location‑based targeting; the amendment passed after floor consideration and H121 was passed on third reading.

The bill now proceeds for transmittal and any House action; enforcement mechanisms in the bill indicate civil enforcement channels and the attorney general’s role for covered violations.