- Trump -Administration wanted to block data brokers from selling info about US citizens
- The plan is now abandoned
- Datamasaling is an industry on multiple trillion dollars
The plan to prevent data brokers from selling personal and financial information generated from US citizens has been scrapped.
In the United States, data brokers can harvest and sell sensitive information about the country’s citizens, including names, addresses, social security numbers, search of historical data, purchase history, location data and more. Ordinary buyers include advertisers and marketers, financial institutions, recruiters, government organizations and insurance companies.
At the end of 2024, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) plans to adjust the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a federal law that regulates how consumer credit information is collected, used and shared. It should treat data brokers the same as any other company that should have forced them to comply with the privacy rules of the law.
Protection of citizens
However, this rule was withdrawn recently, Techcrunch reported, quoting a new listing in the federal register. Apparently, CFPB’s acting director Russell Vought wrote that the rule “is not in line with Bureau’s current interpretation” of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
CFPB wanted to prevent data brokers from selling data about US citizens citing privacy risks, discrimination, lack of transparency and regulatory gaps. Allegedly, the goal was to protect consumers from harmful or unreasonable use of their personal information. Techcrunch says that last year, the FTC banned “more data brokers” from collecting and sharing data without the permission of the individuals.
It is also worth mentioning that data is fuel for most cyberattacks these days. Sensitive data is important in phishing and spear-phishing attacks, identity theft and can often be useful for brute-tinging passwords. Therefore, the data broker industry is often the goal itself.
In the last few years, there were several high-profile cyberattacks against data broker and housing organizations, including 2023 23andme attack, 2024 National Public Data Breach and 2024 Snowflake incident.
Via Techcrunch
