[JURIST] The Nevada Senate [official website] on Monday approved a bill requiring Internet providers to disclose what types of personal information they collect from users. Senate Bill 538 [text, PDF] is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford [official website] and Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson [official website]. According to Ford, “It’s important that Nevada’s privacy laws reflect that we are all conducting more of our lives online.” Senate Bill 538 also requires Internet providers to publish information on any third-party contractors who may be stockpiling user data. The unanimous passing of the bill makes Nevada one of the roughly a dozen states that have enhanced Internet privacy laws in the past two months, a response to the Presidential Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American [text] signed by US President Donald Trump [official website] in April.

The increased “Internet of Things” has led to new and unique challenges to consumers who wish to maintain data privacy, sparking the involvement of many civil rights groups with strong opinions on the international controversy. US President Donald Trump’s repeal of internet privacy regulations [JURIST report] set during the end of former president Barrack Obama’s term is only the most recent change in internet regulations. Earlier in April, Facebook settled a class-action lawsuit levied against it for its prior practice of scanning private messages [JURIST report] to aid in ads. Also in March, a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected the settlement of a class action lawsuit where non-Gmail email users contended that Google illegally scanned their e-mail correspondence [JURIST report] with Gmail users for targeted advertising purposes. In February, the Federal Trade Commission announced a $2.2 million settlement with VIZIO over the alleged collection of viewer data without consent [JURIST report]. In January, Liberty, a UK-based advocacy group, announced that it had met its crowding funding goal to launch a legal challenge against recently passed surveillance legislation that allows the government to record internet history [JURIST report] of every UK citizen for up to a year.