The Dangers Of the Data Trade

The FTC joins the push to put new restrictions on the market for personal smartphone data

- Joshua Brustein

The Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade set off widespread concerns that location data collected and shared by smartphones could be used to prosecute people who receive or provide abortions. There’s scant regulation of the industry built around the selling and buying of personal data, which IDC says generates $15 billion annually. That puts a lot of weight on the privacy protections set by location-data brokers themselves.

These safeguards are inconsistent at best. Over the summer, a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter signed up for a free trial on the website of Advan Research Corp., a New York-based company that markets “unmatched, global, foot traffic analytics” to clients in real estate and finance. When he searched for the term “abortion,” the company’s administrators disabled his trial account and sent him an email warning that it doesn’t allow users to “obtain information on such sensitive locations.” But another reporter entered the street addresses of established abortion providers and was able to access the data his colleague had been looking for without an issue. An Advan spokesperson says that the company blocks sensitive locations like abortion clinics and jails, but adds that it’s “technically next to impossible” to have a comprehensive, real-time list.