Why Worry About My Data If I Have Nothing To Hide?

It's easier than ever for companies to collect your personal data and compile it into a profile for advertisers, ICE, and other agencies.

As ICE cracks down in Minneapolis and across the country, reporters and privacy advocates have drawn attention to how the agency is using technology: scanning people’s faces without consent, using private health records to make arrests, tracking people’s location in real time with phone data.

So how does all this work? How does the United States’ data ecosystem make it possible for not just ICE, but any number of government agencies and businesses to buy our private data? And what actually happens after we send that DM or open up Instagram at a protest to post a picture?

To learn more, Host Flora Lichtman sits down with law professor and tech policy expert Laura Moy. She’s testified in Congress about privacy laws and how data brokers profit off of personal data.

Guest: Laura Moy is an associate professor of law at Georgetown Law, based in Washington, D.C.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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