Connecticut adds digital rights to its new laws
Surveillance control · 27.09.2026

С 1 октября Коннектикут запускает почти сотню новых законов, и там внезапно нашлось место цифровым правам.

Wait, let me redo this properly in English.

**Connecticut adds digital rights to its new laws**

Starting October 1, Connecticut is rolling out nearly a hundred new laws, and digital rights unexpectedly found a place among them. Stores and businesses are now required to post signs if they use facial recognition — 39 pages of legislation to explain that if a camera is watching you, you have the right to know about it. There's also a mandatory QR code or link to the technology's usage policy. Progress, sure, but a relative one — you're still being scanned, just politely warned about it now.

State Attorney General William Tong proudly calls this a "significant expansion" of the state's data privacy law, one of the first of its kind in the country. They've also banned the sale of geolocation data — a person's precise coordinates can no longer simply be sold to third parties. "Surveillance pricing" has been restricted too: algorithms will no longer be able to use browser history to figure out who to charge more.

Chatbots get their own storyline. State Senator James Maroney cited statistics showing that nearly a third of teens are in "inappropriate relationships" with a chatbot. Under the new law, bots are barred from engaging in sexualized conversations with minors. The fact that this even had to be written into law is itself a diagnosis of the industry, not of regulation.

Employers are now required to disclose if AI is involved in screening job candidates — no more silent algorithmic filters.

Maroney was candid: "This is a start, not a finish line. This is a floor, not a ceiling." A rare case where an official doesn't pretend everything is already settled — and promises to come back in 2027 to refine it further.

While somewhere out there people are inventing new ways to bypass blocks, Connecticut is figuring out whether a store is obligated to warn you that it's watching you. A small step, but at least it's a step toward transparency rather than another shield for surveillance.

Source: https://www.courant.com/2026/09/27/nearly-100-new-laws-take-effect-this-week-guns-artificial-intelligence-facial-recognition-ice-and-more/