from the have-you-ever-noticed-that-making-money-is-the-only-thing-we-actually-care-about dept
We’ve famous for an extended whereas that the performative hysteria surrounding TikTok is principally a large distraction from our failures on shopper safety and privateness laws.
Working example: the rising variety of psychological well being apps that routinely gather and monetize delicate shopper psychological well being information, but fail to meaningfully defend the info they gather. Mozilla, for instance, last May found that almost all psychological well being apps have abysmal privateness and safety requirements, and infrequently promote entry to this information to all kinds of dodgy information brokers and middlemen (together with governments).
This week the Washington Put up unsurprisingly found {that a} lengthy line of knowledge brokers visitors in delicate consumer psychological well being information due to pandemic-era rise of telehealth and remedy apps, together with the addresses of these identified with despair, nervousness, post-traumatic stress or bipolar dysfunction:
After contacting information brokers to ask what sorts of psychological well being info she might purchase, researcher Joanne Kim reported that she finally discovered 11 corporations prepared to promote bundles of knowledge that included info on what antidepressants individuals have been taking, whether or not they struggled with insomnia or consideration points, and particulars on different medical illnesses, together with Alzheimer’s illness or bladder-control difficulties.
It’s telling that this story didn’t even hassle to incorporate the standard trade protection about how this isn’t an enormous deal as a result of this information is “anonymized,” a time period information scientists have discovered to be meaningless.
This complete mess is, in fact, a direct results of our failure to move even fundamental privateness laws for the web period; laws that features significant accountability for firms and executives who play quick and free with delicate U.S. shopper information, and satisfactory enforcement funding for traditionally understaffed privateness regulators on the FTC.
Whereas the FTC did recently fine GoodRX for the unauthorized sharing of shopper well being information, the company lacks the staff or funding to go after dangerous actors on the scale they’re now working. Even within the wake of Roe’s overturn, and the ensuing issues in regards to the dangers of this data being abused by activists and vigilantes, curiosity in significant reform has confirmed to be tepid at finest.
There’s merely an excessive amount of cash to be made.
As a substitute, we’ve watched as the identical policymakers that created this oversight-optional information hoovering hellscape focus the whole lot of their political consideration hyperventilating a couple of single app: TikTok. Both ignoring or oblivious to the truth that the whole lot of the unaccountable wild west they created can additionally be exploited by the Chinese language intelligence companies they faux to be so involved about.
Filed Beneath: chinese, consumer protection, data brokers, ftc, mental health data, privacy, privacy legislation, privacy reform, surveillance, tiktok
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