Personal Data: Easier to Get Than Ever, Reprod. Health Workers at Risk. Data Brokers, Doxxing, Swatting
Daily Kos, May 4, 2024. Ed. Photo: medical practitioner and a patient at Planned Parenthood. By Jasmine Mithani, The 19th.🔍
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In November, a study revealed how easily foreign governments could use companies known as data brokers to purchase personal information about U.S. military personnel. In some cases, researchers paid less than a quarter per record for information that included home addresses, cell phone numbers, and sensitive health data.
Congress reacted quickly; the House passed legislation this year that seeks to restrict the sale of “personally identifiable sensitive data” of American residents to North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran, or any businesses or individuals in any of those countries. The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 is now with the Senate’s committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Data brokers are analytics companies that compile dossiers about all of us, combing thousands of sources, including DMVs, licensing agencies, and social media.
They then sell it to law enforcement, immigration authorities, and insurance companies. (If you’ve ever been contacted about a class-action lawsuit, your information could have been provided by a data broker). For many people who work at abortion providers or in the reproductive health space, the problem isn’t foreign governments buying their information. It’s fellow Americans who oppose abortion who want to target them, often to directly threaten them. And national legislation to protect digital privacy has stalled for years.
- Key Terms: - Doxxing (verb): to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.
- Swatting (verb): a cyber harassment technique with a goal of sending an armed emergency response team to a victim’s location.. One of the most insidious forms of violence to emerge over the past decade is doxxing, or the public release of personal contact information to facilitate harassment. Part of the reason doxxing is so common is because of the ease of access to this information granted by data brokers, which often charge only a small fee...
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/4/2238715/-Personal-data-is-easier-to-get-than-ever-Reproductive-health-workers-are-at-risk
