House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) speaks during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with TikTok CEO Shouzi Zhou March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somode Villa | Getty Images
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressuring more than two dozen data brokers, including Equifax, Oracle and White Pages to reveal the types of information they collect about U.S. consumers and how they distribute that information, according to letter Shared exclusively with CNBC.
In the letter, 10 lawmakers asked the companies to respond in detail about the types of sensitive information they collect, such as health, location and phone data, including the apps consumers download to their devices. The companies were also asked what information they collected about minors.
The move comes as the House Energy and Commerce Committee continues to scrutinize data brokers, a key part of the tech industry that collects and sells vast amounts of Americans’ digital information.
The letters ask whether brokers consider data of any kind to be prohibited from buying or selling, what restrictions they place on data they share with third parties, and how they verify the accuracy of the data they collect and distribute. Other questions include seeking to understand how much money businesses make from sales data and how many sources they use to obtain that information.
Last month, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held a hearing Examining “The Role of Data Brokers in the Digital Economy” with expert witnesses. The letters show that the committee remains focused on this part of the tech industry as it looks to pass sweeping privacy legislation.It also shows that Congress is focusing on a wider range of companies than just large corporations like this one Google and Facebook attracted so much scrutiny.
legislators point out Recently proposed solutions The lawsuit between the FTC and online mental health service provider BetterHelp comes after the agency accused the company of sharing sensitive customer data with third-party websites for advertising purposes.
“Privacy concerns for the data brokerage industry in the United States are not new, and existing laws do not adequately protect Americans’ data from misuse,” the letter said, adding that a 2014 FTC report left room for maneuver. In that report, the regulator recommended that Congress force brokers to give consumers greater control over their data, but “data brokers can easily circumvent existing rules and laws,” the letter said.
Lawmakers who signed the letter included committee chairwoman Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and several subcommittee chairmen and ranking members: Reps. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., Kathy Castor , D-Fla., Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Bob Latta, R-Ohio, Doris Matsui, D-Calif., Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla. and Jan Schakowsky, D-Disease.
Below is the full list of data brokers who received the letter:
- Acxiom
- data
- Tongtian Street
- Core Logic Solutions
- Epsilon Data Management
- Equifax
- Experian
- Gravy Analysis
- Intel
- Kochava
- Live Ramp
- my life
- Oracle America
- Personal networks
- Placer.ai
- Relax
- Security Graph
- spoken language
- Thomson Reuters
- TransUnion
- Verisk Analysis
- Whitepages
Watch: Facebook battles Apple over user privacy features in iOS update
