US announces plan to regulate personal data brokerage and trading

Data has become a new resource. MIT statistics show that by 2025, 175 Zettabytes of data will be created. If each USB is 1GB of data, 175 trillion USBs are needed to store all the world 's data. This huge amount of USBs can circle the equator 222 times. VietNamNet introduces the series of articles "Digital Data" to provide readers with information and knowledge about this "gold mine" of the digital age.

Lesson 1: China struggles with the dual goal of balancing security with promoting the data economy

According to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, the behavior of data brokers is “particularly troubling” because sensitive data can fuel the use of artificial intelligence ( AI ) to collect information on military personnel, people with dementia, and other vulnerable populations.

“The CFPB will take steps to ensure data brokers in the surveillance industry know they cannot engage in unauthorized collection and sharing of information,” Chopra said.

In 2022, President Joe Biden asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action to protect the data privacy of women seeking reproductive health care, who could face legal trouble under some states' regulations.

The US government is increasing its oversight of the brokerage, collection and sale of personal data.

The FTC is also suing an Idaho company for selling cellphone geolocation data, alleging the information can be traced back to locations such as abortion clinics, churches and drug rehab centers.

Before the August 15 announcement, the CFPB said the new proposal would be more broad in scope and apply to companies currently covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a 1970 law that protects information consumers provide to lenders, including payment history, income and criminal records.

Officials said one of their “particular” concerns is the security of “credit” data, or personal information such as names, addresses and Social Security numbers, for certain users such as victims of domestic violence.

In March, the CFPB launched a public investigation into credit companies and bureaus that found that data brokers had sold information about financially troubled consumers to companies that targeted them with debt products.

Caught in legal trouble for leaking pregnancy examination data

Last year, the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, allowing more states to impose abortion bans.

The move has sparked strong protests from social activists, while also highlighting the risk of Internet users getting into trouble with the law because of their own digital footprints.

Reversing the abortion rights ruling has created a strong backlash, especially given that digital footprints could expose women to prosecution in some states.

In American judicial history, there have been cases of women being prosecuted for pregnancy-related issues, after the prosecution accessed their web browsing history.

In 2018, a grand jury indicted a Mississippi woman for second-degree murder after she suffered a miscarriage, based on her search history.

Private companies can sell pregnant women's location data, and this information can be used by anti-abortion lobby groups to target advertising and pressure pregnant mothers when they visit clinics.

Around the world, law enforcement agencies and personal data brokers routinely track social media usage, location data, online purchases, and search histories to map and build customer profiles, all of which are collected with or without the subject’s consent.

While law enforcement sometimes needs a warrant to access such data, this information is often sold on the open market by data brokers and advertising platforms.

Some lawyers in the US say the end of Roe v. Wade could usher in a new era of “surveillance capitalism” in wider areas of the country. “If you have a hammer, everything else can be a nail.”

SafeGraph, a data company, said it is deleting Patterns data that shows how users interact with a specific location, linked to family planning centers, after it was revealed the data could be easily transferred and pose a risk to customers.

Meanwhile, Google also announced that it will allow users to limit the number of ads related to certain topics, such as pregnancy.

(According to Reuters)

Lesson 3: Success in building shared data in Ho Chi Minh City

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