Pamela Jones Harbour writes:
Concerns about privacy practices in the data broker industry, and the privacy implications about the lack of transparency “behind-the-scenes,” will remain a topic of intense regulatory and legislative focus in 2014. The Federal Trade Commission has defined “data brokers” as companies that collect personal information about consumers from a variety of public and non-public sources and resell the information to other companies. The reselling of consumer information may occur for purposes that include the marketing of products; verifying an individual’s identity; differentiating records; or preventing financial fraud. However, there is no statutory definition of data brokers, nor are there laws requiring data brokers to maintain the privacy of consumer data – unless the data is used for purposes under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), such as credit, insurance, housing or employment. 2014 will bring renewed and expanded FTC and legislative scrutiny relating to three diverse categories of data brokers, identified in the FTC 2012 Privacy Report, reflecting different levels of data sensitivity:
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