Beyond Data Centers: 5 AI-Accountability Moves in the Courts, the Statehouse, and Your Rent

By AI Laws USA · 2026-07-01

The Supreme Court protected your phone's location data. Connecticut regulated workplace AI. And two states moved to ban the algorithms quietly setting your rent and your rideshare fare.

Data-center fights dominate the local headlines, but the last week of June also produced a cluster of AI-accountability moves that have nothing to do with server farms — and everything to do with algorithms making decisions about you. A Supreme Court ruling on location tracking, a comprehensive state workplace-AI law, and two bills aimed at algorithmic pricing of rent and rideshares. Here are five to know.

1. COURT

   1. Supreme Court: your phone's location data is protected by the Fourth Amendment

   United States (federal — Chatrie v. United States) · Litigation — U.S. Supreme Court ruling

   The Supreme Court held that people have a Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in smartphone location data, so government access — including via geofence warrants that sweep up everyone near a location — is a search requiring constitutional protection. A landmark limit on a core police AI/data-mining technique.

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2. NEW LAW

   2. Connecticut enacts a comprehensive workplace-AI + transparency law

   Connecticut (state — Public Act 26-15 / SB 5) · Enacted — CART Act signed

   Connecticut's AI Responsibility and Transparency Act establishes a developer-deployer framework, requires employers to disclose use of automated employment-decision technology, and bars using such technology as a defense to a discrimination claim — one of the few comprehensive state AI laws to actually clear a governor's desk this cycle.

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3. PROPOSED

   3. New Jersey moves to ban algorithmic rent-fixing

   New Jersey (state — FAIR Act, A3497/S2624) · Proposed — sent to the governor

   The Forbidding the Algorithmic Inflation of Rent (FAIR) Act would bar landlords from using software that coordinates rent-setting from nonpublic competitor data — the RealPage problem — and now sits on the governor's desk. Illinois is chasing the same target with SB 343.

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4. PROPOSED

   4. Pennsylvania passes a ban on rideshare 'surveillance pricing'

   Pennsylvania (state — HB 2512) · Proposed — passed the House

   Pennsylvania's House passed HB 2512 to prohibit Uber, Lyft, and other transportation-network companies from using a rider's personal data to set individualized 'surveillance' prices. It heads to the Senate — an early front in the broader fight over algorithmic personalized pricing.

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5. COURT

   5. Maryland's top court keeps a data-center zone off the ballot

   Frederick County, MD (county — In re Frederick Cnty. Data Center Referendum) · Litigation — Maryland Supreme Court ruling

   The Maryland Supreme Court held that the zoning changes creating Frederick County's 2,600-acre data-center development zone are not subject to a ballot referendum, keeping the zoning in force over residents' objections — a reminder that the courts, not just councils, decide how far the public gets to push back.

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From geofence warrants to rent algorithms to surge-priced Ubers, the common thread is accountability for automated decision-making — the quiet, everyday AI that most 'AI policy' coverage misses. We index all of it, at every level of government, at ailawsusa.com.

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