The US might just have its very own data privacy law soon.
A group of senators recently submitted a bill that aims to expand protections for Americans' health and location data following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
The US has yet to have a comprehensive federal law that governs data privacy in the country despite the many proposals made to establish one over the years, per Osano.
UPHOLD Privacy Act Details
Democratic senators Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Mazie Hirono recently introduced a bill that expand protections for Americans' personal health and location data, per Sen. Klobuchar's official Senate website.
The bill, titled "Upholding Protections for Health and Online Location Data (UPHOLD) Privacy Act," was authored to prevent companies from profiting off of personally identifiable health data for advertising purposes, along with prohibiting and banning data brokers from selling people's location data.
Should the bill become law, it would allow consumers greater access to and ownership over their personal health information and restrict companies' ability to collect or use information about consumers' personal health without their consent. Apart from their personal health data and location, the data consumers could access easily with the bill include those from medical centers, fitness trackers, and browser histories, per Engadget.
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Sen. Klobuchar mentioned in a statement by stopping the use of personal health information for commercial advertising and banning the sale of precise location data, the UPHOLD Privacy Act will establish new protections to safeguard Americans' privacy while giving consumers a greater say over how their health data is shared online.
"For too long companies have profited off of Americans' online data while consumers have been left in the dark, which is especially concerning in light of reports that some social media companies collect data related to reproductive health care," Klobuchar said.
Meanwhile, the UPHOLD Privacy act's restrictions wouldn't apply to public health campaigns.
While some form of data privacy is in place for health data in the form of The Health Information Privacy and Portability Act (HIPAA Act), it only applies to health data from doctors, insurance companies, and their business associates. As such, the data that falls outside these exceptions are fair game for companies to share and sell at their leisure, per Gizmodo's report.
Roe v. Wade
The bill couldn't have come at a better time. With the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Sen. Hirono mentioned that it is critical a safeguard for Americans' reproductive data is created, allowing everyone to trust that personal data about their bodies and health care will be protected.
"By restricting the sale and use of personally identifiable health data, this bill will give patients and providers the peace of mind that their private information is secure."
A Vice report supports Sen. Hirono's statement, with the publication finding that people could buy data about anyone who visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in a week for $160, allowing anyone to know where they came from and where they went after.
A similar investigation from Gizmodo also discovered that 32 data brokers were selling lists of pregnant people that make tracking and subjecting them to more scrutiny and/or surveillance easily, per a staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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