2026 Regular Session - Day 46 - HB 692 | Rep. Josh Branscum

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. House Bill 692 is a continuation and builds upon the great work that this General Assembly did in passing the Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act. For those of you who are here, I made the comment in 24 that this will not be the last time that we touch this statute, particularly as new technologies emerge, the increasing use and development of artificial intelligence and just other technologies that may not exist yet. I'm confident that we'll continue to update and refine our Consumer Data Protection Act, which has really served as a model across the country. That continuation of protecting consumer data is what we're doing here today. House Bill 692 specifically targets and addresses the usage of automatic content recognition, specifically in smart televisions and smart monitors. I'll say that again, specifically to smart televisions and smart monitors. Just to give you a little background on automatic content recognition or ACR, roughly every half a second or up to every few seconds, your smart television is taking very small snapshots or audio video fingerprints of what you're watching at home or what's on screen in your boardrooms. This includes content coming from cable boxes, streaming apps, gaming consoles, or any other device being displayed on the screen through inputs. These aren't full recordings, but rather extracting a digital fingerprint. This data is then collected on the back end and used for numerous things and specifically for targeted advertising. And Mr. Speaker, I would venture to say that the majority, if not almost all consumers, are unaware that their smart televisions are doing this. And I firmly believe that the act of a consumer purchasing a smart television or smart monitor does not constitute the forfeiture of your rights with regards to the collection of your sensitive data. While this bill is not making ACR illegal, we are making it to where the consumer must opt in versus having to opt out. How we did that exactly was to rely on a provision within the framework of our existing Data Privacy Act, particularly KRS 367.3617, which is not in this bill, which states that sensitive data concerning a consumer cannot be collected without the consumer's consent or opting in. So all we did in this bill, as you will see, is that we added automatic content recognition data as sensitive data, which triggers the requirement for an opt-in. You'll also see that we have excluded mobile devices and voice assistant devices. Finally, you'll see an effective date of July 1, 2027. And this is very important in that it gives the manufacturers time to implement and allows for a short session, us to come in in a short session before that implementation date, in case there is something that we need to clean up. And with this legislation, we may be one of, if not the first state in the nation to address this. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I move for passage of House Bill 692.