Another comprehensive data privacy bill featuring protections around sensitive geolocation information is poised to emerge soon on Beacon Hill.

As reproductive care, civil rights and domestic violence advocates emphasized their support at a briefing Wednesday for location shield legislation (S 197) already on the move in the Senate, Rep. Tricia-Farley Bouvier stood alongside House sponsors (H 86) Reps. Kate Lipper-Garabedian and David Vieira.

The panel that Farley-Bouvier co-chairs -- the Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity Committee -- has until Sunday to take action on the location shield bill and other data privacy proposals that had a hearing on April 9. Under new House rules, House chairs of joint committees must make final reports on timely filed bills 60 days after a hearing, though they can seek extensions.

“We are working under the House rules, the 60-day limit right now, and then we’re going to be making some decisions at the end of the week,” Farley-Bouvier told the News Service.

“I feel very strongly the more I learn about this issue, that location shield -- and that is the shielding of precise location -- is very important as part of a larger data privacy bill,” the Pittsfield Democrat continued. “Without protections of all of our data, including a long list of sensitive data, not just location, we are not protecting people enough. It is my goal to pass comprehensive data protections that’s inclusive of precise location data.”

Senate members favorably reported out Sen. Cindy Creem’s location shield bill on May 12. It’s now awaiting action in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. The House passed a narrow version of the bill last session.

The legislation, seen as a crucial privacy protection for individuals seeking reproductive and transgender care, would block the sale of location data to third parties. It would also install guardrails around the type of location data that can be collected, create a time frame for location data to be destroyed, and largely prohibit the disclosure of location data to federal, state or local government agencies.

Senate committee members have advanced an omnibus Data Privacy Act (S 2516) that gives consumers the right to access, correct and delete personal data; limits the collection, processing and transferring of data to what is “reasonably necessary” to provide a product or service; and prohibits the sale of “sensitive data.”

On the House side of the committee, Farley-Bouvier said members intend to categorize location data as “sensitive data” that would gain additional protections.

“We have many bills around data privacy in the committee, and there will be a committee bill coming out of the committee,” Farley-Bouvier said.

Vieira, who continued to pitch his proposal as a standalone bill, sought to rally support from the dozens of legislative staffers at the briefing.

“If your bosses are not signed on, please bring this to the forefront. Remind them, if they’re in the House, that this was unanimous in the last session. If they’re in the Senate, tell them the Senate’s ready to take action,” Vieira said. “I want to get to 101 co-sponsors today before we adjourn in the House, so that we have more than half of the Legislature, of the General Court, that believes that privacy is a fundamental human right.”

The bill was just a few co-sponsors short of that goal as of Wednesday afternoon.

Gavi Wolfe, legislative director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, pointed out other states are already embracing more robust data privacy protections.

“Just yesterday, the governor of Oregon signed a law that bans the sale of precise geolocation data, just like the location shield act. And not for nothing, it was passed unanimously through both chambers in Oregon,” Wolfe said. “So Oregon’s not the first state to do this, but they’re the latest, and states around the country are passing data privacy laws that are moving in this direction, that are focusing on banning the sale of various kinds of sensitive data.”

More abortion care threats outlined in Project 2025 are on the horizon, said Claire Teylouni, senior director of policy and programs at Reproductive Equity Now. That includes expanding surveillance of abortion data, revoking FDA approval of mifepristone, and blocking the mailing of medication abortion, she said.

“As we anticipate all these threats becoming a reality and prepare as if they will come to fruition, it’s really important that we focus on the digital privacy of patients and providers to make sure that we are continuing to use every tool available to us to protect access to care and protect patients and providers from criminalization,” Teylouni said.

Data privacy protections could augment Sen. Cindy Friedman’s shield bill (S 2522), which aims to tighten the state’s 2022 abortion and gender-identity shield law that protects providers and patients from out-of-state legal action. That proposal emerged at a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, where co-chair Rep. Michael Day said the branches are “aligned” on resisting attempts by Republicans in Washington and across the country to restrict access to care.

The Trump administration rescinded federal guidance Tuesday that required hospitals to provide emergency abortions -- regardless of state-level abortion bans -- under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Friedman’s bill would mandate hospitals provide emergency abortion care, including for patients experiencing ectopic pregnancies, pregnancy loss complications, and certain cases of placental abruption or bleeding.