Dobbs Decision Poses Calamitous New Threats to Privacy
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As CDT President and CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens said, “In the digital age, this decision opens the door to law enforcement and private bounty hunters seeking vast amounts of private data from ordinary Americans. Location data that reveals sensitive reproductive health information can be collected and sold by data brokers without users’ knowledge. Data about a person’s reproductive health decisions can also be revealed from sources like their browser and search histories, email and text message logs, use of reproductive health apps, and other commercial products with which many users interact daily.”
State reactions to the decision, which allowed individual states to limit or outright ban abortion, will likely be swift and varied, but on the whole create frightening new incentives for law enforcement and civilians to seek out private information about patients seeking reproductive care, and the providers who support them. In a new post, we describe how that tracking can and does happen, how states have anticipated and responded to the overturning of Roe, what companies can do, and how people can protect themselves.
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In Case You Missed It
- This week, CDT & the ACLU filed amicus briefs on behalf of a coalition of civil rights, human rights, and sex workers’ rights organizations in two cases that will set important new precedent interpreting the Allowing States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). We urged the 9th and 11th Circuits to hold that, in order for online intermediaries to be held liable for civil claims for facilitating sex trafficking, FOSTA requires these intermediaries to have actual knowledge of sex trafficking. In both cases, we argued that holding intermediaries liable under a lower standard than “knowing” would raise serious First Amendment questions, and negatively impact users and the public.
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- As more people sought and qualified for public benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, more benefits became available, and attempted benefits fraud also increased on both an individual and large scale. Further, public agencies experienced challenges in delivering services in an efficient way to the large volume of applicants, leading them to increasingly turn to data sharing and technology to make service delivery easier and more efficient while limiting fraud and waste. Agencies' efforts to use biometrics technology for these purposes, however, raise a number of concerns. New CDT guidance sets forth best practices for government agencies, both in assessing whether alternatives are available and how to mitigate some of the privacy and equity risks associated with reliance on biometric data.
- CDT welcomed bipartisan federal privacy legislation introduced earlier this month. Said CDT President and CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens, “This draft shows that there is a bipartisan path forward on long-overdue legislation to protect consumers’ privacy. Americans want and desperately need legislation to protect their personal data and promote trust in the online world. While it’s not perfect, the draft is a hopeful first step. We urge Congress to move forward with the legislative process and pass legislation by the end of this year.”
- Last month, the Supreme Court ruled on Texas social media law H.B. 20, preventing it from going into effect while challenges to the law are litigated. CDT and other leading digital rights groups filed a brief in the case, telling the Court that the Texas law threatens to unwind years of work by advocates around the world to get social media companies to take hate, harassment, and disinformation seriously. The law’s practical result would be to discourage websites from moderating certain content for fear of lawsuits accusing them of bias and censorship.
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CDT in the Press
CDT President and CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens joined CBS News for a conversation about privacy and health information, including data from period-tracking apps, in a post-Roe world.
DeVan Hankerson Madrigal, CDT’s Research Manager, told EdSurge, “It's been long demonstrated that historically marginalized groups of students have [fewer] educational opportunities than their peers do. Those disparities in opportunity can be compounded through the technologies that schools are using, not only in a lack of access, but also in saddling those students with surveillance technology when that access is provided.”
Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project Emma Llansó spoke with Grid News about content moderation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, telling them that “there’s also likely a lot of concern among online service providers about how far different states are going to go to push the boundaries of what constitutes ‘aiding and abetting’ somebody seeking an abortion… This is a dynamic that we see again and again with online service providers, when there is this heightened or new risk of liability.”
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CDT "in Person"- Next month, CDT and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) are hosting Democracy Affirming Technology: Restoring Trust Online, an event highlighting the consequences of malign information campaigns and how stakeholders can restore trust online. Taking place at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, the event will feature speakers including CDT’s CEO Alexandra Reeve Givens, SIIA’s Jeff Joseph & Paul Lekas, U.S. government officials, members of Congress, and policy experts.
- Mark your calendars — Tech Prom is back! Join CDT on Thursday, October 6, at The Anthem in Washington, D.C. for an evening of mixing and mingling with leaders in the tech policy space.
- Have you listened to the latest episode of Tech Talk yet? Host Jamal Magby is joined on CDT’s podcast by our own Greg Nojeim, Senior Counsel and Director of the Security and Surveillance Project, and Dhanaraj Thakur, Research Director, to discuss CDT’s recently released report, Legal Loopholes and Data for Dollars. The report explores the data broker ecosystem, which is estimated to be worth about $200 billion, and examines how law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been evading legal requirements by purchasing data from brokers.
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Staff Spotlight
Cody Venzke, Senior Counsel, Equity in Civic Technology
How long have you been working in digital rights? I am now in my fourth year working in digital rights and technology regulation—with another nine years of dabbling, coursework, and K-12 teaching experience prior to that.
What is your proudest moment while at CDT? Any time a policymaker we've not met before seeks us out for advice, based on a recommendation by one of our existing partners. It's good to know that our advocacy is trusted enough to be recommended by those we've worked with in the past.
What is your fandom? Sci-fi and fantasy music. I spend too much time listening to soundtracks from sci-fi and fantasy series and love the communities that have sprung up around cataloging, remixing, and rescoring their music.
Cats or dogs? Yes!
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