Illinois Attorney General warns privacy may be at risk due to loopholes with private data brokers

CHICAGO (WLS) — Illinois’ top prosecutor has a dire warning about loopholes that may impact your privacy. Where you go on vacation, where your phone is while you sleep and while you work, your buying habits and online searches, political leanings and personal healthcare, much of your information is bought and sold by private data brokers. And, some is obtained by federal agencies, with your privacy hanging in the balance. ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch According to the Illinois Attorney General and digital privacy experts, the ability of the federal government to monitor intimate details of your private life has never been more powerful with the buying and selling of personal data now being analyzed with artificial intelligence. The AG, along with others, is now urging Congress to close loopholes they claim violate your personal privacy and the Fourth Amendment. “I think right now, large scale data is a real risk, and it’s real power for whoever has it,” said Ben Zhou, a computer science professor at the University of Chicago. He told the I-Team while most of that data is not connected to your identity when it is bought and sold, any entity, including the government, using powerful artificial intelligence models could potentially draw specific conclusions about who you are simply based on your daily activities. “Once you have multiple dimensions of data, you can sort of break anonymity fairly quickly, Zhou added. “Whether it’s used for advertising or tracking locations or identifying political affiliations, whatever it is that you may want, everything that we do in our lives is basically out there.” It’s why Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said he and 16 other attorneys general are asking Congress to close loopholes allowing the federal government to buy bulk data on Americans without a judicial warrant. He said federal agencies have already purchased billions of records enabling them to track an individual’s movements, routines, and daily lives. “With the use of AI, profiles can be created and data can be collected that would otherwise require a warrant.” Raoul said. He said it’s time for the federal government to update outdated privacy laws and mandate the deletion of unlawfully collected data. “Members of Congress are very concerned about federal investigative agencies bypassing constitutional protections,” he explained. Zhao emphasized the potential for misuse or even misidentification of profiles is alarming, because even best-in-class AI models make mistakes. “Just errors that are just flat out, you know, made from thin air, accusing people of specific patterns that they’ve done or things that they bought or activities they’ve taken part in, and it could just all be wrong,” he warned. “The negative consequences on people’s lives could be really, really severe.” Both Zhao and Attorney General Raoul say this should not be a partisan issue because privacy rights affect everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
https://abc7chicago.com/post/illinois-attorney-general-kwame-raoul-warns-privacy-is-risk-due-loopholes-private-data-brokers-government-surveillance/18831162/