The US watchdog vows to crack down on Americans who sell personal data

U.S. watchdog threatens to crack down on people who sell personal information about Americans.

The U.S. government wants to control the vast data broker business with new privacy-focused rules. These rules are meant to protect the personal information of millions of Americans from data breaches, violent criminals, and even chatbots that use artificial intelligence.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will soon release a proposal to extend the rules that apply to credit reports, arrest records, and other types of data to the "surveillance industry," a large group of businesses that trade in increasingly digitalized personal information.

The CFPB said that the possible rules, which are not yet public or final, could make it illegal for data brokers to sell certain types of consumer information, such as a person's income or criminal and payment past, except in certain situations.

The push could also lead to new limits on the sale of personal information like Social Security numbers, names, and addresses, which the CFPB said data brokers often buy from the big credit reporting bureaus to make their profiles on individual consumers.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the regulations would make sure that data brokers only sell sensitive information for legitimate financial reasons, like background checks for jobs or credit decisions, and not for unrelated reasons that could let third parties use the data to train A.I. algorithms or chatbots, for example, said the CFPB.

This year, the agency looked into the data broker business and found that many people are worried about consumer data being collected, used, and shared. People from the public sent in a lot of information about how sharing data without rules can put minorities, seniors, immigrants, and victims of domestic abuse at a higher risk than others.

In a statement, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said, "Reports about making money off of sensitive information, like the financial details of U.S. military members or lists of specific people with dementia, are especially worrisome when data is used to power 'artificial intelligence' and other automated decision-making about our lives. The CFPB will take steps to make sure that data brokers in the surveillance industry today know they can't collect and share our information illegally."

The agency said that the plan from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be shown to small businesses for feedback before it is made public in a formal rulemaking.

The CFPB isn't the only U.S. body cracking down on the massive data industry. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a broad set of rules limiting how businesses gather and use customer data. These rules are meant to stop what FTC Chair Lina Khan has called "persistent tracking and routine surveillance of individuals."

The agency's efforts show that Congress has yet to be able to make a national privacy law for consumers, even though lawmakers have been talking about it for years, and privacy laws are getting stricter in other countries, which affects U.S. businesses more and more.