In the absence of comprehensive federal privacy legislation in the United States, the targeted advertising industry, fueled by personal information harvested from our cell phone applications, has run roughshod over our privacy. Worse, the boundaries between corporate surveillance and government...

"Unless your data is fully encrypted or stored locally by you, the government often can get it from a communications or computing company.

Traditionally, that required a court order. But increasingly, the government just buys it from data brokers who bought it from the adtech industry."

“this corporate-government surveillance partnership has mostly evaded judicial review.”

“Police can also track people whose devices have been inside an immigration attorney’s office, a reproductive health clinic, or a mental health facility”

“The Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act is bipartisan, commonsense law that would ban the U.S. government from purchasing data it would otherwise need a warrant to acquire. Moreover, with the invasive surveillance law Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set to expire in December 2023, Congress has a chance to include a databroker limits in any bill that seeks to renew it.”

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      They should be considered a crime against national and individual security, as well as democracy.

      Nation states use it for intelligence and psychological warfare operations, and could use it to plan and conduct attacks of both traditional and cyber warfare.

      Criminals use it to commit financial crimes on individuals and orgs.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
    6·
    1 year ago

    There are no laws in the US that prevent ANY of your personal data to be brokered and sold at this time, including your health information and biometrics I’d you willingly provide them, or sign away your rights to said data.

    • DancingIsForbidden@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      eventually the feds will require your biometrics to even get a driver’s license, so it will explicitly be the law that that information be openly accessible (or at least verifiable) for you to even reasonably exist (the alternative is to not drive or be able to access any services which require ID).

        • DancingIsForbidden@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 year ago

          Your drivers license has a picture.

          Yes, and per the definition, this is not a biometric. Or is there some way around this?

          There was an article a few days ago about the Western world moving to universal digital IDs verified with biometrics to replace passports and that is quite significantly different than a picture I took 4 years ago on a bad hair day pre COVID.