A growing number of lawmakers and regulators have taken significant steps toward reining in businesses that profit from the mass collection and sale of private data.
Data brokers are businesses that collect data related to nearly every aspect of a person's life, from their financial information to personal identifying data to even where they have traveled. Such data are regularly provided by websites and apps that people visit and use daily, often without realizing how the data are collected and sold to third parties.Data brokering is unregulated at the federal level, but a bipartisan collection of lawmakers is aiming to change that.
"It's critical that there's some accountability regarding misuse or abuse of our private information and activities," Chopra said. The bureau's proposal is the broadest effort to regulate data brokers to date, with a particular focus on how it affects one's financial health.Massachusetts legislators are also considering regulations for data brokers. In June, state Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian and state Sen. Cynthia Creem introduced the Location Shield Act, a bill prohibiting the sale of cellphone location data by brokers.
Massachusetts's ban is designed to focus on how location data could be used to track and possibly prosecute women who have had an abortion. Some brokers have sold data related to users' visits to abortion clinics, leading abortion rights advocates to say the tech could be used by police in states with anti-abortion laws to prosecute residents. At least one firm, SafeGraph, sold a week's worth of location data involving visits to abortion clinics for only $160.
Some of this data tracking is useful, such as Google tracking a user's location while using the Maps App to improve accuracy. But a lot of the data collections are unrealized by consumers and may be used to their detriment.
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