Rhode Island Data Transparency and Privacy Protection Act (R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 6-48.1) Guide

Section 6-48.1-3 speaks to any commercial website or internet service provider conducting business in Rhode Island, with Rhode Island customers, or otherwise under Rhode Island jurisdiction. Its specific collection, storage and sale condition triggers the prominent information-sharing disclosure. That wording must be assessed on its own terms rather than assumed to require 35,000 customers. § 6-48.1-3: information sharing practices

Section 6-48.1-5 applies customer rights to for-profit entities doing business in the state or targeting residents that in the preceding calendar year processed at least 35,000 customers’ data, excluding payment-only data, or at least 10,000 customers’ data and derived more than 20% of gross revenue from personal-data sales. Government bodies, nonprofits, higher education and specified regulated entities or data receive enumerated exclusions elsewhere in the chapter. § 6-48.1-5: customer rights and thresholds

Eligible customers may confirm and access processing, correct inaccuracies, delete data provided by or obtained about them, obtain an eligible portable copy, and opt out of targeted advertising, personal-data sales and profiling used for solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. The law permits an authorized agent for the opt-out rights. § 6-48.1-5: customer rights and thresholds

A controller should connect the notice and secure request channel to actual internal workflows: identify the requester where required, route an opt-out to relevant vendors, and maintain records of how the choice was handled. Privacy, legal and engineering teams should review any statutory exceptions before deciding a particular request’s outcome. § 6-48.1-6: controller and processor responsibilities

Rhode Island’s sale definition includes an exchange for money or other valuable consideration, subject to listed exceptions. For marketing pixels, client-side tags and server-side events, document the information transferred, recipient, purpose, value exchanged and contractual role. The existence of a third-party request alone does not settle the sale classification. Rhode Island General Laws, chapter 6-48.1

The distinctive disclosure rule asks a qualifying website to identify categories collected and third parties to whom personally identifiable information has been or may be sold. Compare the published disclosures against the actual tag inventory and contracts, including conditional or dormant integrations. Where targeted advertising or sale is involved, verify that a customer can find and exercise the relevant choice. § 6-48.1-3: information sharing practices

The chapter provides an opt-out right and permits an authorized agent to exercise certain opt-outs. The official provisions reviewed for this guide do not establish a general requirement to honor every browser-level Global Privacy Control signal as the specified statutory method. A company may still choose to implement GPC, or have duties under another applicable law. § 6-48.1-5: customer rights and thresholds

Run direct-request and GPC test sessions separately. Record which scripts and data transmissions stop after each choice, whether vendor and server calls follow the same state, and whether the customer notice accurately describes the path. Counsel should judge the legal adequacy of the resulting mechanism. § 6-48.1-6: controller and processor responsibilities

The Rhode Island Attorney General has sole authority to enforce chapter 6-48.1, which expressly does not create a private right of action. Violations can be treated as deceptive trade practices under the chapter’s enforcement provision. § 6-48.1-8: violations and enforcement

Section 6-48.1-8 sets a $100 to $500 fine for each intentional disclosure to a shell company formed to circumvent the law or intentional disclosure in violation of the chapter. This is a specified intentional-disclosure provision, not a flat penalty assigned to every possible website error. § 6-48.1-8: violations and enforcement

Start with the distinction between § 6-48.1-3 and § 6-48.1-5. Legal counsel should assess which provisions cover the organization, its exclusions, and its sale and advertising classifications. Engineering should map scripts, cookies, server events, vendor platforms like Google Ads and Meta, collection categories and the choices visible to customers. § 6-48.1-3: information sharing practices

Then compare privacy-notice language to real transfers and retest the opt-out journey. A disclosure that names a vendor category cannot repair a choice that fails to reach that vendor; likewise, a quiet scan does not prove the organization has made all legally required disclosures. § 6-48.1-6: controller and processor responsibilities

Use separate browser sessions to compare the site’s initial behavior, its response to a direct opt-out, and its response to Global Privacy Control where relevant to your review. Record the page URL, test time, browser settings and exact choice made so the result can be reproduced.

Inspect cookies and network requests before and after each choice. Record which requests continue, their destinations and the controls involved. Browser evidence can help diagnose an implementation; it cannot establish statutory applicability, the legal purpose of every transfer or organization-wide compliance.

Legal interpretation, applicability, exemptions, privacy notices, vendor contracts, rights-request procedures, sensitive-data obligations, and organizational governance should be handled by qualified privacy counsel.

The chapter’s two different scopes, rights text and enforcement language are drawn from the official Rhode Island General Laws effective January 1, 2026. Source links are adjacent to the claims they support; implementation examples are technical observations, not legal determinations.

Prepared by Etalon Editorial Team. Last reviewed September 28, 2026. Material corrections may be sent to contact@etalondata.com.

Etalon is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. A passing scan or certificate does not guarantee that an organization satisfies every legal obligation.

Technical testing records observable website behavior. Your legal and privacy team remains responsible for coverage, exclusions, classifications, notices, requests, sensitive data, children, contracts, assessments and governance.