Rampant Data Broker Sale of Pregnancy Data Gets Fresh Scrutiny Post Roe
upstart writes:
Rampant Data Broker Sale Of Pregnancy Data Gets Fresh Scrutiny Post Roe:
For decades now, privacy advocates warned we were creating a dystopia through our rampant over-collection and monetization of consumer data. And just as often, those concerns were greeted with calls of "consumers don't actually care about privacy" from overly confident white guys in tech.
Nothing has exposed those flippant responses as ignorant quite like the post-Roe privacy landscape, in which basic female health data can now be weaponized to ruin the lives of those seeking abortions, or those trying to help women obtain foundational health care. Either by states looking to prosecute them, or individual right wing hardliners who often have easy, cheap access to the exact same information.
The latest case in point: Gizmodo did a deep dive into the largely unaccountable data broker space and discovered there are currently 32 different data brokers selling pregnancy status data on 2.9 billion consumer profiles.
Via browsing, app, promotion, and location data, those consumers are quickly deemed "actively pregnant" or "shopping for maternity products." Another 478 million customer profiles are actively labeled "interested in pregnancy" or "intending to become pregnant." As is usually the case, companies (the ones that could be identified) claimed it was no big deal because the data is "anonymized":
Related: Okay, Google: To Protect Women, Collect Less Data About Everyone
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