“Do Not Sell My Info”: Consumer Privacy Rights in a Data-Driven Society
As tech companies hold increasing influence over the way our businesses operate, citizens have demonstrated growing concern about privacy rights. Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica gained access to 87 million Facebook profiles through the social network’s developer tools; multinational consumer credit reporting agency Equifax experienced a data breach involving 145.5 million users; drug company GlaxoSmithKline exploited DNA data from millions of 23andMe customers.
Indeed, companies continue to realize the power of consumer data to generate profit through consumer behavior tracking and discrimination. In order to customize user experiences and maximize revenue, surveillance is often used to sort people into categories. This vast access to data empowers corporations to manipulate individuals based on socioeconomic background. As companies’ analytical abilities continue to expand, companies have also begun using data to infer demographic information about consumers and predict behavior. As companies build detailed profiles about customers, these sorting techniques clearly raise potential moral dangers, such as deception, manipulation, and discrimination against vulnerable populations. Often unaware of how their data is used by companies, customers sometimes receive different services based on speculations generated by algorithms.
In June of 2018, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as a response to public outcry over several instances of data misuse by big tech. Perhaps the most far-reaching data protection law ever enacted in the United States, the law tightened regulations on consumer data collection by businesses in California and granted consumers more power over their personal information.
Specifically, the law grants consumers the following rights: (1) the right to request access to collected personal information, (2) the right to request businesses to delete their data, (3) the right to opt out of third-party access to any personal information, and (4) the right to equal services and prices despite withdrawal from data collection. Additionally, to protect minors, the law requires authorization from parents for consumers under 13.
The CCPA also covers a wide range of businesses. The law targets for-profit businesses that receive more than $25M in annual gross revenues, handle personal information of 50,000+ California residents, or earn more than half of its revenue from California residents’ data. As a result of California’s global economic impact, the regulations are estimated to affect more than half a million businesses. A Congressional Research Service report estimates that “businesses with even ‘relatively small’ websites [were] likely to collect personal information … from more than 50,000 Californians.”
While the CCPA provides users unprecedented digital data privacy rights, its enforcement demands resources that do not currently exist. The California Attorney General’s office itself has “indicated that it will only have the bandwidth to bring a handful of [CCPA] cases each year,” suggesting to companies that the CCPA’s alleged penalties may not become reality. Especially when reforming data privacy policies can be costly and time-consuming, businesses may be discouraged from following the CCPA.
Since the proposal of the CCPA in 2018, legislators around the country have introduced numerous bills that would bolster consumer privacy protections on a national scale:
- Representative Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) introduced the PROTECT Kids Act (H.R. 5573) in January 2020, which sought to amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.
- Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) introduced the Data Protection Act of 2020 (S. 3300) in February, which aims to establish a Federal data protection agency.
- Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) introduced the Privacy Bill of Rights Act (S. 1214) in April 2019. This act offers similar privacy protections as the CCPA, including a provision that establishes a centralized website that provides information to individuals about their rights as well as a list of each data broker in the United States.
- The Balancing the Rights Of Web Surfers Equally and Responsibly Act of 2019 (S. 1116) — also called the BROWSER Act of 2019 — was introduced by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee). It targets internet access service providers with similar provisions as the CCPA, including opt-in/opt-out approval rights.
Much of consumer privacy legislation today aims to mandate Congressional oversight of corporate use and dissemination of data. In recent years, companies have acquired significant revenue using consumer data — Facebook settled a $5 billion privacy case with the Federal Trade Commission last year, and Google paid off a $170 million fine over a child privacy case just months later. While some tech CEOs such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook have voiced support for more “comprehensive privacy legislation,” other corporate executives have demonstrated concerns about excessive penalization and maintenance of user experience. In a 2018 Commerce Committee hearing, Amazon’s vice president Andrew DeVore called on legislators to “ensure that additional overhead and administration demands…might actually produce commensurate privacy benefits.”
As more and more data protection bills are introduced into Congress, it has become abundantly clear that consumer privacy legislation is a priority for constituents and elected officials. Representative Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) offered support for more privacy-related legislation, including “protections for the multitude of ways consumers’ data is collected both online and offline.” While policymakers hold different opinions about the adoption of data privacy, related legislation has seen growing bipartisan support. Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) stated recently that privacy legislation will be “one of the best opportunities” for Republicans and Democrats to work together in the current Congress.
IssueVoter allows you to learn about introduced legislation and hold your representatives accountable for protecting your consumer privacy rights. Reach out to your elected officials to voice your opinion about consumer data collection on IssueVoter!
