In past blogs, I have discussed the different types of data brokers, the sources from whence data brokers collect their data, the risks associated with data brokers (as narrated by John Oliver), and proposed laws at the Federal level and state levels (e.g., California and Texas). Recent headlines highlighting this include a Gay/Bi dating app and a Muslim Prayer app selling data on people’s location to a data broker, millions of workers’ paystubs being sold to data brokers, data brokers advertising that they can sell real-time location data of active military personnel, and an antiabortion group based in Wisconsin using location data bought from data brokers to target ads to Planned Parenthood visitors. Second, a lot of the data that data brokers have is inaccurate. Other examples include one person reporting that a large data broker was only 50% accurate with their data and another finding that a data broker’s data on him “was laughably inaccurate” with only 27% accuracy. Data brokers often share or sell their data with other data brokers who may share or sell that data to another.

Source: New York Times July 10, 2023 07:39 UTC