The Washington state House Technology and Economic Development Committee held public hearings Jan. 21 on two proposed bills from Rep. Jeff Morris (D-Mount Vernon) to strengthen privacy laws regarding new and emerging technologies.

House Bills 1093 and 1094 would limit the collection of Washingtonians’ personal data by use of unmanned aircraft (drones) and various emerging biometric data collection tools. Morris’ proposed legislation (HB 1093) would prohibit drones with active sensing devices from collecting personal information — including images of an individual on private property — without the individual’s consent, unless the federal government has provided specific authorization or the drone is clearly labelled with the name and contact information of the owner.

Technology allowing companies to collect biometric data is not limited to science fiction — iris scans, facial recognition and voice recognition technologies already exist, but have yet to be largely used in the commercial and retail industries. Morris’ proposed HB 1094 would establish regulations and limitations on how this information could be collected and used in the future.

Under this legislation, the collection of biometric identifiers of an individual for a commercial purpose without consent would be prohibited. After gaining consent from the consumer, the collector could not sell, lease or disclose the data without receiving additional consent. There would be an exemption for sharing biometric data with law enforcement under warrant.