Security News > 2022 > July > U.S. FTC Vows to Crack Down on illegal Use and Sharing of Citizens' Sensitive Data

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warned this week that it will crack down on tech companies' illegal use and sharing of highly sensitive data and false claims about data anonymization.

"While many consumers may happily offer their location data in exchange for real-time crowd-sourced advice on the fastest route home, they likely think differently about having their thinly-disguised online identity associated with the frequency of their visits to a therapist or cancer doctor," FTC's Kristin Cohen said.

The sensitive nature of information about users' health and their precise whereabouts has prompted the agency to caution against opaque practices in the "Shadowy ad tech and data broker ecosystem," with consumers having little to no knowledge of how their personal data is harvested, used, and processed.

What's more, mobile apps are known to embed software development kits that claim to collect and share anonymized user information with third-parties, including data aggregators that gather such data from myriad sources and then sell access to it.

Data anonymization refers to the practice of protecting private or sensitive information by stripping off identifiers such as names, social security numbers, and addresses that connect an individual to stored data.

It's been repeatedly established that anonymized data can often be re-identified when combining several datasets, forming a "Surprisingly clear picture of our identities."

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2022/07/us-ftc-vows-to-crack-down-on-illegal.html