How many devices, apps, and digital services have you used today? Do you know what data you’ve shared with whom, and how it will be used a year from now? We’ve seamlessly integrated technology into every facet of our lives while tasking everyday users with navigating every pop-up, privacy policy, and setting. This is fundamentally unfair and unworkable. It’s time to decide to put in place some purpose limitations and prohibitions on secondary collection and use that exist outside of our broken “notice and consent” model.
Location data provides a good example. It reveals everywhere we work, play, and pray. It is collected by our devices, our ISPs, and many of the apps and websites we use. While location data can enable useful services like maps, weather, and localized news, it is often sold or repurposed for other things, like marketing and even surveillance. Individuals want to protect their location but have few effective ways to maintain any control over it. The New York Times, for example, reported how apps that request permission to use location data to provide local news or weather buried details about how that information could be shared and repurposed by many other companies.
This challenge applies to other types of data like biometrics, health information, email contacts, private messages, photos, and more.
If you are reading this draft and want to talk to our Privacy & Data team for more info, please contact Michelle Richardson at mrichardson@cdt.org.
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