What’s next for our privacy?

Data brokers and their clients defend these transactions by saying that most of this data is anonymized—though it’s doubtful that can be done in the case of geolocation data. Additionally, anonymized data can easily be re-identified, especially when combined with other personal information. Digital rights advocates have for years raised the alarm about this clandestine industry, particularly the way it can harm already marginalized communities, even as the various types of data collection have caused consternation across the political spectrum. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, is concerned about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is buying location data to evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic lockdowns. Then a study from last year showed how easy (and cheap) it is to buy sensitive data about members of the US military; Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, cited the national security risks of data brokers in a statement to the MIT Technology Review, and Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, later said he was “shocked” to read about the practice in our story. But it was the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that ended the constitutional guarantee of legal abortion that prompted much of the federal action last year. Shortly after the Dobbs ruling, President Biden issued an executive order to protect access to reproductive health care; it included instructions for the FTC to take steps to prevent information about visits to doctor’s offices or abortion clinics from being sold to law enforcement agencies or state prosecutors. New Enforcers With Donald Trump taking office in January, and Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress, the fate of the CFPB’s proposed rules—and the CFPB itself—is uncertain. Republicans, the people behind Project 2025, and Elon Musk (who will lead the newly created advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency) have long wanted to see the bureau “destroyed”, as Musk put it in the X. act of Congress, make it reliable, but there are other ways that the administration can really curtail its powers. Trump is likely to fire the current director and install a Republican who could overturn existing CFPB rules and stop any proposed rules from moving forward. Meanwhile, the FTC’s enforcement actions are just that of enforcers. The FTC’s decision doesn’t set legal precedent in the same way that court cases do, said Ben Winters, a former Justice Department official and director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, a network of consumer-focused organizations and agencies. protection. However, he “needs consistency [and] additional enforcement to make the entire industry afraid of not having FTC enforcement action against them. (It should also be noted that this FTC settlement specifically focuses on geolocation data, which is just one of the many types of sensitive data that are routinely given up to participate in the digital world.) Looking ahead, Tiffany Li, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who focuses on AI and privacy laws, worried about a “undermining FTC” that he said would be “less aggressive in taking action against companies.” Lina Khan, the current head of the FTC, has been at the forefront of privacy protection actions in the US, Li said, and she is leaving. Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s newly-named pick to be the next FTC chairman, has come out with strong opposition to data brokers: “This type of data – records of the exact physical location of people – is intrusive and reveals people’s private affairs,” he wrote in a statement about Mobilewalla’s decision, indicating that they will continue to act against him. (Ferguson has served as commissioner of the FTC since April 20214.) On the other hand, he has talked about using FTC actions as an alternative to privacy laws passed by Congress. And, of course, this brings us back to the other main road: Congress has so far failed to pass such legislation — and it’s unclear whether the next Congress will. Movement in the states Without federal legislative action, many US states are taking privacy issues into their own hands.

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