TECH The Illinois Chamber advocated for a healthy and vibrant tech landscape in Illinois which fosters innovation and job creation while balancing the need to protect the public. By working with member companies and legis- lators, several measures were presented, but didn’t move forward once the impact of the language was more clearly explained and the unintended consequences were better understood. Some of the measures below were held and didn’t pass in this session. That doesn’t mean that those bills won’t resurface with new amendments to address concerns that were raised. It is more than likely that there will be further conversations and developments as sponsors make their best efforts to address problems with their legislation. The tech landscape is constantly changing, and continued vigilance and collaboration will be required by the Chamber team and our members to make Illinois a great place for innovation. Please refer to some of the highlights of the energy-related bills in this report, as energy costs and regula- tions have tremendous potential to affect tech-related development in Illinois. There are more bills with AI implications originating in the House than in the Senate. It appears that the Sen- ate is taking a more deliberative approach to AI legislation and has not moved forward with several bills that passed the House. The Senate heard many bills for subject matter which allowed proponents and opponents the opportunity to provide a deeper understanding of some of the implications of very complicated tech legis- lation. Priority Legislation HB 3574 (Slaughter/Collins) Data Residency The City of Chicago passed a data residency ordinance which creates requirements for where the City’s data is stored. HB3574 follows that model and extends the residency requirement for state data to be stored in the United States. The bill also incentivizes the hosting of all state data (which does not preclude backups from being stored there) by a single company in a single geographic location. This approach is not considered the best practice. HB3574 would not allow most cloud providers to take advantage of the new incentive program. Rep. Slaughter moved HB3574 out of the House on a vote of 114-1-0 before the Easter break. The bill was then assigned to the Senate Executive Committee. The tech community then took greater notice of the bill and began to rally to stop its passage. When several attempts to slow its momentum failed, the Illinois Chamber requested a meeting with Senate President Harmon. In the meeting with Senator Harmon, the potential vulnerabilities to state data were explained, and the request was made to the Chamber to bring back language that instead incentivizes best practices. The Chamber draft- ed an amendment that was circulated among active stakeholders. When it became clear that more time and discussion were necessary to reach an agreement, the Chamber again met with Senate President Harmon, and it was determined that a summer project regarding best practices was in order. Through the efforts of the Chamber on behalf of Chamber members, the bill did not move forward, and oppor- tunities to craft better language will be underway throughout the summer. SB 1486 (Aquino/Morgan) Junk Fees For the last two session years, Senator Aquino and Representative Morgan have worked hard to prevent Illinois consumers from paying junk fees that don’t add value to the transaction and lack transparency for the purchaser to make an informed decision. In 2024, a version of this bill made its way through committee in the Senate but never got to the Senate Floor. SB1486 was filed in 2025 to pick up where the initial effort left off. 2025 END OF SESSION 28 | END OF SESSION REPORT
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