A coalition of privacy and civil rights groups has filed a formal complaint urging Maryland’s attorney general to investigate data brokers for allegedly violating state privacy laws.

Key Points

• The complaint targets companies including Penlink, Thomson Reuters, Motorola, Insight LPR, LexisNexis, and Flock Safety for allegedly selling geolocation data without proper warrants.
• Advocates claim these brokers are violating Maryland law by selling sensitive personal information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for surveillance purposes.
• Maryland’s privacy law, updated in 2024, prohibits the sale of precise geolocation data and restricts data sharing with immigration enforcement agencies without a warrant.
• Companies named in the complaint, including Penlink and Thomson Reuters, have denied the allegations and maintain that their business practices comply with all applicable regulations.
• The complaint was authored by the Georgetown University Law Center’s Technology Law Clinic on behalf of 12 organizations, including We Are CASA.

Why it Matters

This case highlights the growing tension between state-level privacy protections and the federal government's use of the "data broker loophole" to conduct surveillance without judicial oversight. If successful, an investigation could set a significant legal precedent for how states can restrict law enforcement access to commercially purchased personal data.