News

Nebraska Farm Bureau warns farm data privacy is becoming a major producer concern

The Nebraska Farm Bureau says digital privacy is becoming a major issue for its members, as more farm equipment and apps gather detailed data from their operations.

Bruce Riecker, senior director of legislative affairs, says he expects lawmakers to take up a bill that could regulate who has access in the 2026 session. He says there are several considerations.

“Who owns the data? Who has the right to use it? How do they have the right to use it? And how do we protect the producers so that it can’t be used against them in some sort of predatory way or malicious way?”

For example, he says data could be come public and used by companies, foreign adversaries or other producers. “I don’t want to overhype this…but if producers have the data of other producers how would they use that to try and rent the land that someone has or that they’re farming?”

He says it’s like health care privacy laws. “These conversations are very much akin to when they created the HIPPA Act. There’s proprietary information. How do we protect that? Who has the fiduciary responsibility to protect that information if they get it if it was generated on the farm.”

Riekcer tells Brownfield any regulations will need to flexibility and balance.

“A lot of the things that there may be federal tax credits or state incentives that are tied to being able to prove what you’re doing or or not,” he says.

But, he says, “Whatever we do, we don’t restrict the real time data ability to have that information.”

Riecker says part of this issue is also about awareness and regulations so producers understand how the data is collected and stored and who they give access to it.