Delaware Bills

This Act creates the Professional Athlete Funding Act, which authorizes and establishes regulations pertaining to player brand agreements.

This Concurrent Resolution recognizes the National Coalition of 100 Black Women Inc., Delaware Chapter for its dedication to improving the lives of Black women and girls in Delaware through advocacy, civic engagement, and other community-building initiatives.

This House Concurrent Resolution recognizes June 15, 2018, as “Delaware Elder Abuse Awareness Day” and encourages all of Delaware’s citizens to learn about how to protect and nurture our elderly citizens.

This Act creates the Omnibus School Safety Fund to provide funding to public and charter schools for certain school safety projects.

This Act creates a Delaware Commission on Irish Heritage and Culture.

This Act requires an owner/landlord to accept rental payments from a manufactured home owner/tenant and makes the failure to accept a rental payment a retaliatory act. This Act adopts a provision of the Delaware Residential Landlord-Tenant Code that requires an owner/landlord to provide a receipt for a cash payment of rent and to maintain records of cash payments for 3 years. This Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This Act will create the Biometric Privacy Protection Act and Geolocation Privacy Protection Act in Title 6 of the Delaware Code to give Delaware’s citizens important protections with respect to the collection, storage, use, and disclosure of their unique biometric information (such as fingerprints, voiceprints, and retinal and facial scans) and, with respect to their use of mobile devices, geolocation information that can identify Biometrics are biological and behavioral characteristics, such as fingerprints, voiceprints, and retinal and facial scans, that uniquely identify a person, and they are increasingly being collected from Delaware’s citizens and used for a variety of purposes, including marketing, employment, and security. Biometrics are among our most sensitive personal information, potentially more valuable to identity thieves, hackers, and marketers than even Social Security numbers, and need to be protected as such. Currently under Delaware law, biometric information can be collected without an individual’s knowledge or consent, and a person capturing or collecting biometric information is not required to identify what biometric information is being collected, why it’s being collected, or how long it will be kept. Delaware law also contains no protections for individuals to prevent their biometric information from being sold or transferred to third parties. The use of biometrics offers great promise for improving the lives of Delaware’s citizens in a variety of ways, but the sensitivity and importance of biometric information requires that there be protections for Delawareans with regard to the collection and use of their biometric information. The Biometric Privacy Protection Act will expand the legal protections available under Delaware law to individuals relating to the collection and use of their biometric identifiers and biometric information. Among its provisions, the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act: (1) Requires persons in possession of biometric data to develop and make publicly available written retention schedules and guidelines for keeping biometric information; (2) Requires persons to provide timely, reasonable notice and obtain informed, affirmative consent before acquiring, collecting, storing, or capturing biometric data; (3) Prohibits persons from selling or profiting from an individual’s biometric data; (4) Prohibits persons from disclosing or disseminating an individual’s biometric data except under specified circumstances, which include an individual’s informed, affirmative consent to the disclosure; and (5) Requires persons in possession of biometric data to implement and maintain reasonable procedures and practices to protect the biometric data and prevent its unauthorized disclosure. Geolocation information is data that can be used to determine the precise location of smartphones and other mobile devices and, by extension, the individuals carrying them. Such information can be used to track the users carrying those devices wherever they go. Location-based applications currently can make use of geolocation information on an individual’s mobile device without explicitly informing the individual that the geolocation information is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed, why it is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed, or to whom it is being disclosed, and without obtaining the individual’s consent to the collection, use, storage, or disclosure of the geolocation information. The Geolocation Privacy Protection Act will create legal protections for Delaware’s citizens relating to the collection, use, storage, or disclosure of the geolocation information on their mobile devices, by prohibiting persons from collecting, using, storing, or disclosing such information unless they first obtain an individual’s affirmative express consent after providing the individual with clear, prominent, and accurate notice that: (1) Tells the individual that the individual’s geolocation information is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed; (2) Informs the individual of the specific purposes for which the geolocation information is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed; (3) Informs the individual of the identity of any third parties to whom the geolocation information is being disclosed; and (4) Provides the individual with a hyperlink or other easy access to the geolocation information collected, used, stored, or disclosed. Both the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act and the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act give the Consumer Protection Unit of the Department of Justice the authority to investigate and prosecute violations. There is no private right of action under the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act or the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act. Both the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act or the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act provide that their provisions do not apply to certain specified persons or entities or in certain specific situations. This Act provides that it will become effective January 1 following its enactment into law.

This Act will permit engineers to obtain mechanic’s liens but only if improvements as contemplated by the engineering or architectural services provided are actually constructed or if the surveys or plans are actually approved by the governing authority having jurisdiction or recorded.

This Bill would allow all on-premises licensees who sell a bottle of alcohol (other than beer) to place a cap on the bottle and allow patrons to take it home with them for consumption later. Delaware was one of the first states to recognize that it was important that patrons who purchase a bottle of wine have the opportunity to take the remainder of the bottle home with them rather than face the choice of drinking more than they should and driving, or leaving part of the bottle they had paid for at the premise.

This bill lowers the mayoral age requirement from 30 to 25. This change makes the Mayor’s age requirement consistent with that for City Councilmen. Under the City ‘s Charter, if the Mayor resigns, dies or is unable to perform his/her duties, the Council President takes the Mayor’s place. This succession would prove problematic if the Council President does not meet the age requirement for Mayor.

This Act is designed to address underage gambling offenses under § 4810 of Title 29 in a more efficient way. Section 1 of this Act requires mandatory counseling for underage individuals who gamble in violation of § 4810(a) of Title 29 and provides for original jurisdiction for these violations in the Justice of Peace Courts for those who are 18 years of age or older and for original jurisdiction for these violations in the Family Court for those who are 17 years of age or younger. Section 2 of this Act gives Superior Court jurisdiction over other violations of the underage gambling law. Section 3 makes violations of § 4810(a) of Title 29 eligible for probation before judgment. Section 4 of the Act makes violations of § 4810(a) of Title 29 a warrantless crime, which would permit violators to be processed through the use of a criminal summons. Finally, this Act also makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.

This bill amends 18 Del. C. § 6907 relating to the filing of annual statements and payment of premium taxes for captive insurance entities. This legislation will require captive insurers to file their annual statements and pay premium taxes on or before April 15th of each year.