Underground Economy (H 7870, S 3035A)

Legislation creating a task force on employee misclassification and the underground economy contained one of the more dangerous anti-privacy provisions of the year. The six member agencies comprising the Task Force – including the Attorney General’s office, tax administrator, Department of Public Safety and Department of Labor and Training – maintain a tremendous amount of highly sensitive information about Rhode Islanders that is largely protected for release by a number of confidentiality laws. The legislation, however, allowed the Task Force to ignore every confidentiality provision in Rhode Island law to share any information they desire between the other members, with minimal justification. In April and June, the ACLU testified before the House and Senate Finance Committees, respectively, that this provision would allow for virtually unfettered sharing of information, and that unilaterally overriding all confidentiality laws is unnecessary when a more tailored approach can strike a balance between the Task Force’s goals and the privacy of every Rhode Islander. The Senate Finance committee approved the legislation without adopting the ACLU’s suggestions in June, and identical language was approved by the House and Senate as part of the Fiscal Year 2015 budget.