Rep. Logan Phillips, R-Mounds, celebrated passage through the Senate of a pair of bills he authored in the House.

“Both of these bills are critical to protect the privacy of Oklahomans and I’m pleased to see them overwhelmingly passed out of the Senate,” he said. “Technology brings advancement, which we encourage more of and love to see, but it also brings with it concerns that the Legislature must address. Both of these bills are common sense pieces of legislation that protect all Oklahomans and I’m proud to have championed these bills in the House.”

House Bill 3168 and House Bill 3171 by Phillips both passed out of the Senate.

House Bill 3168 creates the Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022, which would prohibit numerous types of marketing calls and set strict parameters on when others can be made. HB 3168 prohibits:

• Automated telephonic sales/robocalls without prior express written consent;
• Telephone sales calls that do not display the originating telephone number and name on the caller ID;
• Telephone sales calls that intentionally alter the caller’s voice to disguise or conceal their identity to mislead or confuse;
• Sales calls before 8 a.m. and after 8 p.m.;
• More than three sales calls within a 24-hour period on the same matter; and
• Sales calls that block caller ID or display a different phone number than the originating number.

The bill has 26 exemptions, including:

• Sales calls of an infrequent or one-time nature;
• Calls for noncommercial purposes;
• Solicitors who do not make the sales presentation during the call, but rather arrange a face-to-face meeting;
• Financial institutions or licensed securities, commodities, investment, or insurance brokers;
• Newspaper or cable solicitations, or book, video, or record club plan; and
• Qualified business-to-business sales.

If a sales call violates this act, a recipient can initiate legal action to have a judge require the solicitor to stop, and the called party can recover actual damages or $500, whichever is greater. HB 3168 has been sent to Stitt’s desk for consideration.

House Bill 3171 prohibits any operator of an unmanned aerial vehicle from trespassing onto private property or into airspace within 400 feet of ground level with the intent to subject anyone to eavesdropping or other surveillance without the consent of the owner or lessee, observe or record a person in an area where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy or intentionally land a drone on the lands or waters that are the private property of another without the consent of the owner. The bill provides that violators will bill guilty of a misdemeanor.