Digital Choice Act

2025-2026 Bill 4666: Digital Choice Act - South Carolina Legislature Online

South Carolina General Assembly
126th Session, 2025-2026
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H. 4666
STATUS INFORMATION
General Bill
Sponsors: Reps. Guffey, Pope and Robbins
Companion/Similar bill(s): 932
Document Path: LC-0274HDB26.docx
Introduced in the House on January 13, 2026
Currently residing in the House
Summary: Digital Choice Act
HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS

Date

Body

Action Description with journal page number

12/16/2025

House

Prefiled

12/16/2025

House

Referred to Committee on
Judiciary

1/13/2026

House

Introduced and read first time (
House Journal-page 50
)

1/13/2026

House

Referred to Committee on
Judiciary
(
House Journal-page 50
)

3/10/2026

House

Member(s) request name added as sponsor: Robbins

View the latest
legislative information
at the website
VERSIONS OF THIS BILL
12/17/2025

A bill

TO AMEND THE SOUTH CAROLINA CODE OF LAWS BY ENACTING THE
"DIGITAL CHOICE ACT" BY ADDING CHAPTER 31 TO TITLE 37 SO AS TO DEFINE NECESSARY
TERMS; TO ESTABLISH LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA DATA CONTROL AND
COMPETITION; TO ESTABLISH THE FORMAT IN WHICH A SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICE MUST
PROVIDE A CONSUMER WITH A COPY OF THE CONSUMER'S PERSONAL DATA UPON REQUEST; TO
REQUIRE A SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY TO IMPLEMENT DATA INTEROPERABILITY INTERFACES;
TO ESTABLISH REQUIREMENTS FOR DATA SHARING BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES; TO
PROVIDE CIVIL PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER; AND TO PROVIDE
CONSUMERS WITH CERTAIN RIGHTS.

B
e it enacted by the
General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

S
ECTION 1.
T
itle 37 of the S.C. Code is amended by adding:

C
HAPTER 31

D
igital Choice Act

S
ection
37-31-10
.
A
s used in this chapter:

(
1) "Administrator"
means the officer appointed by the Commission on Consumer Affairs to administer
this title.

(
2)
"Controller" means a person doing business in the State who determines the
purposes for which and the means by which personal data is processed,
regardless of whether the person makes the determination alone or with others.

(
3)
"Department" means the Department of Consumer Affairs.

(
4) "Open
protocol" means a publicly available technical standard that:

(
a)
enables interoperability and data exchange between social media services by
providing a common data infrastructure where multiple social media services can
access, contribute to, and synchronize a user's personal data;

(
b)
is free from:

(
i)
licensing fees; and

(
ii)
patent restrictions; and

(
c)
governs how social media services communicate and exchange data with each
other.

(
5)
(
a) "Personal data" means information
that is linked or reasonably linkable to an identified individual or an
identifiable individual. "Personal data" includes a user's social graph.

(
b)
"Personal data" does not include deidentified data, aggregated data, or
publicly available information.

(
6)
(
a) "Social graph" means data that
represents a person's connections and interactions within a social media
service.

(
b)
"Social graph" includes:

(
i)
the person's social connections with other users;

(
ii)
content created by the person;

(
iii)
the person's responses to other users' content, including comments, reactions,
and shares;

(
iv)
other users' responses to the person's content; and

(
v)
metadata associated with any of the items described above.

(
c)
"Social graph" does not include another user's or an entity's content and
responses that have been designated private by those users and entities,
including private messages.

(
7) "Social
media company" means an entity that owns or operates a social media service.

(
8)
(
a) "Social media service" means a
public website or application that:

(
i)
displays content that is primarily generated by account holders and not by the
social media company;

(
ii)
permits an individual to register as an account holder and create a profile
that is made visible to the general public or a set of other users defined by
the account holder;

(
iii)
connects account holders to allow users to interact socially with each other
within the website or application; and

(
iv)
allows account holders to post content viewable by other users.

(
b)
"Social media service" does not include:

(
i)
email;

(
ii)
cloud storage; or

(
iii)
document viewing, sharing, or collaboration services.

(
9) "User"
means an individual located in the State who accesses or uses a social media
service.

S
ection
37-31-20
.
T
he General Assembly finds that:

(
1) an
individual has a right to control and move the individual's own personal data,
including social interactions online;

(
2)
companies have demonstrated a pattern of restricting the interoperability of
content, preventing users from easily sharing posts and interactions across
different platforms; and

(
3)
the State should ensure that individuals have the right to access a complete
personal data record from social media platforms.

S
ection
37-31-30
.
I
f a consumer requests a copy of the
consumer's personal data pursuant to Section
37-31-70
, a social media service
shall provide the personal data, including the user's social graph, in a format
that:

(
1) is
portable, to the extent technically feasible;

(
2) is
readily usable, to the extent practicable; and

(
3)
allows the consumer to transmit the data to another controller without
impediment if the controller processes the data by automated means.

S
ection
37-31-40
.
(
A) A social media
company shall implement a transparent, third-party-accessible interoperability
interface or interfaces to allow users to choose to:

(
1)
share a common set of the user's personal data between the social media
services designated by the user; and

(
2)
enable third parties to access content created by the user and to be notified
when new or updated content is available, with the user's permission.

(
B) A
social media company shall reasonably secure all personal data obtained through
an interoperability interface.

(
C) To
achieve interoperability under subsection (A), a social media company shall:

(
1)
utilize an open protocol;

(
2)
facilitate and maintain interoperability and synchronous data sharing with
other social media services through an interoperability interface, based on
reasonable terms that do not discriminate between social media services;

(
3)
establish reasonable and proportionate thresholds related to the frequency,
nature, and volume of requests, beyond which the social media company may
assess a reasonable fee for such access;

(
4)
offer to other social media companies a functionally equivalent version of any
internal interfaces created by the social media company for the social media
company's own social media services; and

(
5)
disclose to other social media companies complete, accurate, and regularly
updated documentation describing access to the interoperability interface
required under this section.

(
D) A
social media company or third party shall safeguard the privacy and security of
a user's personal data obtained from other social media services through the interoperability
interface in accordance with the social media company's or third party's privacy
notice and administrative, technical, and physical data security practices.

(
E) A
social media company or third party may not share or receive a user's personal
data through the interoperability interface except with the user's consent.

(
F) A
social media company shall adopt an accessible, prominent, and persistent
method for users to give consent for data sharing with other social media
services or third parties through the interoperability interface.

(
G) A
social media company is not required to:

(
1)
provide access to:

(
a)
inferences, analyses, or derived data that the social media company has
generated internally about a user; or

(
b)
proprietary algorithms, ranking systems, or other internal operating
mechanisms; or

(
2)
transmit personal data that:

(
a)
is stored or structured in a proprietary format; and

(
b)
meets both of the following criteria:

(
i)
no open, industry-standard format is reasonably available; and

(
ii)
transmitting the data would disclose information described in item (1) of this
subsection.

(
H)
This chapter does not apply to an entity that is:

(
1)
owned, controlled, operated, or maintained by a religious organization; and

(
2)
exempt from property taxation under state law.

S
ection
37-31-50
.
(
A) The department may
identify open protocols that the department has determined, after an
assessment, meet the requirements of Section
37-31-40
.

(
B) If
a social media company uses an open protocol that the department identifies
under subsection (4), the social media company shall be entitled to a
rebuttable presumption of providing access on reasonable terms that do not
discriminate between social media services.

S
ection
37-31-60
.
(
A) The department shall
administer and enforce this chapter.

(
B)
The Attorney General, upon request, shall give legal advice to, and act as
counsel for, the department in the exercise of the department's
responsibilities under this chapter.

(
C)
(
1) In addition to the department's
enforcement powers under Chapter 6 or any other provisions of this title:

(
a)
the department director may impose an administrative fine of up to two thousand
five hundred dollars for each violation of this chapter; and

(
b)
the department may bring an action in court to enforce a provision of this
chapter.

(
2)
In a court action by the department to enforce a provision of this chapter, the
court may:

(
a)
declare that the act or practice violates a provision of this chapter;

(
b)
enjoin actions that violate this chapter;

(
c)
order disgorgement of any money received in violation of this chapter;

(
d)
order payment of disgorged money to an injured purchaser or consumer;

(
e)
impose a civil penalty of up to two thousand five hundred dollars for each
violation of this chapter;

(
f)
award actual damages to an injured purchaser or consumer; and

(
g)
award any other relief that the court deems reasonable and necessary.

(
3)
If a court grants judgment or injunctive relief to the department, the court
shall award the department:

(
a)
reasonable attorney's fees;

(
b)
court costs; and

(
c)
investigative fees.

(
4)
(
a) A person who violates an
administrative or court order issued for a violation of this chapter is subject
to a civil penalty of not more than five thousand dollars for each violation.

(
b)
A civil penalty authorized under this section may be imposed in any civil
action brought by the department, or by the Attorney General on behalf of the department.

S
ection
37-31-70
.
(
A) A consumer has the
right to:

(
1)
confirm whether a controller is processing the consumer's personal data; and

(
2)
access the consumer's personal data.

(
B) A
consumer has the right to delete the consumer's personal data that the consumer
provided to the controller.

(
C) A
consumer has the right to obtain a copy of the consumer's personal data, that
the consumer previously provided to the controller, in a format that:

(
1)
to the extent feasible, is portable;

(
2)
to the extent practicable, is readily usable; and

(
3)
allows the consumer to transmit the data to another controller without
impediment, where the processing is carried out by automated means.

(
D) A
consumer has the right to request that a controller correct inaccuracies in the
consumer's personal data, taking into account the nature of the personal data
and the purposes of the processing of the consumer's personal data.

(
E) A
consumer has the right to opt out of the processing of the consumer's personal
data for purposes of:

(
1)
targeted advertising; or

(
2)
the sale of personal data.

S
ECTION 2. This act takes effect upon approval
by the Governor.

----XX----

This web page was last updated on January 13, 2026 at 2:38 PM