This House Substitute for House Bill No. 453 prohibits surveillance-based price discrimination by forbidding the use of automated decision systems to set individualized consumer prices based on personal data, metadata, or proxy data, such as device identifiers and digital behavioral patterns, used to infer a consumer's socioeconomic status or urgency of purchase. While the Act establishes safe harbors for discounts based on lawful, objective criteria (e.g., military, student, or senior status), it ensures that rewards and loyalty programs are not used to circumvent these protections by requiring that such discounts remain uniform across membership and are not individualized through algorithmic profiling. This Substitute differs from the original bill by adding a definition of electronic shelving labels and provides language that protects loyalty programs. It also carves out financial services and credit to align with federal regulations, changes the language used for location-based data, discounts for service interruptions, removes the term “risk-relevant data”, and provides a safe harbor provision with an opportunity to cure and a sunset date. Finally, this Substitute also includes a severability clause and an effective date of January 1, 2027.
This Act amends the Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act (DPDPA), Chapter 12D of Title 6, originally enacted in 2023, to more closely align the DPDPA with similar consumer data protection laws enacted in other states. This Act amends the applicability threshold of the DPDPA to entities who process the personal data of not less than 15,000 consumers, which on a population percentage basis closely aligns to thresholds in Connecticut and New Jersey. This Act amends Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) applicability exemptions, adopting approaches to financial data in similar laws in Connecticut, Montana, and Oregon, by exempting all data regulated by GLBA while limiting entity-level exemptions specifically to banks and insurers and their respective affiliates. This Act introduces contracting and due diligence requirements where businesses sell or disclose personal data to third parties and also harmonizes several DPDPA business requirements and consumer rights with personal data privacy laws in other states. This Act also makes technical changes to existing law to conform to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act is a second substitute for Senate Bill No. 19. This substitute bill differs from Senate Bill No. 19 by doing the following: (1) Reorganizing the proposed "Delaware Payment Stablecoins Act" as Chapter 35 of Title 5, rather than Chapter 40 as originally proposed in Senate Bill No. 19. (2) Creating § 3508, which restricts non-financial public companies from issuing payment stablecoins. (3) Creating § 3518, which establishes a voluntary registration pathway for digital asset service providers rather than through the licensing process as originally proposed in Senate Bill No. 19. (4) Creating § 3556, which establishes procedures for the insolvency of a payment stablecoin issuer. (5) Creating a new definition of “control” to better align with the bill. (6) Expanding the definition of “registered public accounting firm” to include certified public accounting firms that meet the standards established by the Delaware Board of Accountancy. (7) Making appropriate technical corrections to conform to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual. Senate Substitute No. 2 for Senate Bill No. 19 establishes the Delaware Payment Stablecoin Act under Title 5 of the Delaware Code. It creates a licensing framework for payment stablecoin issuers and digital asset service providers operating with or on behalf of Delaware residents. The Act adopts definitions drawn from the federal Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), Pub. L. 119-27, and from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's proposed rulemaking implementing that statute (Docket ID OCC-2025-0372), where those definitions do not duplicate existing Delaware law. The Act establishes reserve requirements including reserve shortfall remediation cascades, mandatory redemption timing standards, capital standards, anti-money laundering obligations, data privacy statutory floors, change-in-control notice procedures, custody safeguards, a federal-to-state charter conversion pathway, and strong preemption provisions. The State Bank Commissioner is directed to promulgate implementing regulations within specified timeframes to align Delaware's framework with evolving federal standards. This Act requires a greater than majority vote for passage because § 1 of Article IX of the Delaware Constitution requires the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to enact or amend the general incorporation law.
This Act limits circumstances in which personal identifiable information about applicants or holders of driving privilege cards may be released to those instances where the Delaware Attorney General gives specific approval or where the request for information is in a valid court order. It also amends existing provisions relating to disclosure of driver and motor vehicle information to limit the disclosure or re-disclosure of citizenship or immigration status information and related sensitive personal information. Such information may be released pursuant to a court order, with the approval of the Delaware Attorney General, for voter registration purposes, and where otherwise explicitly authorized by statute.
Reverse-keyword court orders enable the government to obtain technology search data without identifying any specific person as to which there is probable cause to believe they have committed or will imminently commit a crime. The profusion of electronic devices and apps in recent years has allowed recordation of numerous details of citizen’s everyday lives, that the government should not be permitted to collect and review at will. Such general searches allow the government to sweep in personal information about hundreds or thousands of people who are not suspected of having committed any crime. These searches are an invasion of privacy, have a potentially chilling effect on civil liberties, and sidestep requirements for individualized suspicion that are otherwise required for a lawful search. This House Substitute for House Bill No. 145 would prohibit law enforcement and courts from requesting, issuing, or enforcing reverse-keyword court orders and reverse-keyword requests, with the exception that reverse-keyword court orders and requests may be utilized to investigate suspected Class A Felonies so long as the search query returns 5 or fewer search hits. It also requires the suppression of evidence derived from an unlawful reverse-keyword search.
This House Concurrent Resolution urges Delaware schools and school districts to adopt and implement clear policies regarding immigration enforcement and emphasizes the importance of student safety and data privacy. It also requests that the Department of Education develop model policies to assist schools and school districts in the development and maintenance of clear guidance and messaging.
