This week U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and privacy rights advocates are warning about an anti-abortion group using cellphone location data to send misinformation to people visiting hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics across the country. doing.
“If a data broker can track Americans’ cellphones to help extremists misinform people at hundreds of Planned Parenthood locations across the United States, a right-wing prosecutor can use that same information to put women in jail.” Can,” Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement Tuesday.
“Federal watchdogs should hold data brokers accountable for misusing Americans’ private information,” he said. “And Congress needs to act quickly to ensure that extremist politicians cannot purchase this kind of sensitive data without a warrant.”
Since the right-wing US Supreme Court overturned roe vs wade With decision by June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationAnti-state policymakers have increased attacks on abortion rights, raising concerns about patient privacy.
Wyden said in a letter Tuesday that his office launched an investigation after wall street journal It was reported last May that the Veritas Society, a nonprofit founded by Wisconsin Right to Life, had hired advertising agency Recru Media for an anti-abortion ad campaign targeting clinic visitors whose locations the data broker had located near Was tracked by intelligence.
As Wyden wrote to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Lina Khan and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler:
My staff spoke with Steven Bogue, co-founder and managing principal of Recru Media, on May 19, 2023, who revealed that to target these ads, his staff placed a sign around the building and parking lot of each targeted facility. Used Near’s website to draw the line. , On May 26, 2023, my staff spoke with Near’s Chief Privacy Officer, Jay Angelo, who confirmed that, by the summer of 2022, the company will have a way to prevent its customers from targeting people visiting sensitive facilities. There were no technical controls, such as reproductive health clinics.
On a webpage that has since been removed but saved by the Internet Archive, the Veritas Society said that in Wisconsin alone in 2020, it served 14.3 million ads to people visiting abortion clinics, and “ads to those devices given “women’s social pages, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.” The scale of this aggressive surveillance-enabled ad campaign is unknown, however, Mr. Bogue told my staff that the company used Near to target those , who visited 600 Planned Parenthood locations in the lower 48 states.
Justin Sherman, who studies data brokers at Duke University, saidpolitico That “this is the largest ever targeting campaign against reproductive health clinics based on brokered data.”
In case you missed it yesterday, I learned that data brokers are helping anti-abortion extremists exploit location data to target patients. The possibility of how red-state prosecutors could misuse this information should terrify every single smartphone-owning American.
– Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) 14 February 2024
Wyden also highlighted magazine Reporting from October about Near selling location data to defense contractors, who then resold it to the US Department of Defense and intelligence agencies. He wrote that privacy official Angelo “has confirmed that the company sold location data to defense contractor Aelius Exploitation Technologies for three years.”
“Mr. Angelo revealed that after joining Near in June of 2022, he organized a review “investigated the company’s practices and discovered that the company was facilitating the sale of location data to the U.S. government that was obtained without user consent,” the senator continued, adding that the “misleading statements” were removed from Near’s website. Pay attention to.
According to a statement made by the company’s attorney during a bankruptcy hearing on December 11, 2023, “The former executives who led Near during the period in which it engaged in these serious violations of Americans’ privacy now face criminal charges.” “They are under investigation. But they are being prosecuted.” Individuals engaging in financial fraud will not address Near’s corporate misconduct,” Wyden argued, urging the FTC and SEC to take various actions over the company’s “outrageous conduct” that “recklessly harmed the public and investors. ”
Wyden’s letter comes as the Republican-controlled US House plans to adopt the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, which would reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the spying powers temporarily imposed late last year. The agencies—particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—have committed abuses.
Section 702 only allows warrantless surveillance targeting foreigners located outside the United States, but Americans’ data is also swept up, and privacy advocates in and out of Congress — including Wyden — have long called for warrants. The emphasis is on security, which is a major issue in this week’s debate. About the Republican-led reform bill.
A shocking invasion of privacy that reveals the lengths to which extremists will go to track, monitor, intimidate and threaten women who give birth.
I am very concerned about how this data could be used by states that criminalize abortion. This should be investigated.
— Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (@RepJasmin) 13 February 2024
Responding to Wyden’s letter, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that “This is outrageous. Americans’ most personal private health data is being bought and sold for politics. Major surveillance changes are needed. That is, if Congress acts, reforming our Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act should be part of FISA reform.”
That bill, reintroduced by Lofgren, Wyden and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers last July, would have forced the U.S. government to disclose information to data brokers, as well as data on people in the U.S. to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. A court order will need to be obtained to stop buying. and Americans living abroad, if it was obtained from a user’s account or device, or through deceptive practices.
Privacy rights campaigners and experts also responded to Wyden’s letter with renewed calls to close the data broker loopholes.
,
“That data brokers can track people who go to Planned Parenthood is scary enough. That law enforcement agencies can easily purchase this type of sensitive data — rather than get a warrant — is even worse, “
said Ashley Gorski, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Security Project. “This Thursday, Congress should vote to close loopholes for law enforcement purchases from data brokers. The government should not be able to buy its way around the Fourth Amendment.”
,
Demand Progress and EPIC organizations agreed to share social media posts politicoReporting on the letter.
,
“The continued sale of our most sensitive information to and by dubious data brokers not only promotes harmful surveillance advertising systems, but also enables government agencies – from local police departments to state attorneys general to the FBI – to circumvent the Fourth Amendment. enables,
EPIC attorney Sarah Geoghegan said in a statement. “We urgently need to rein in data brokers and create comprehensive privacy rules to protect us from these serious harms—Roe deer The age we live in.”
,
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).