A new proposal would ban data brokers from selling Americans’ health and location information — including information people tell to AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Cloud.
In the coming weeks, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) plan to introduce a new version of the Health and Location Data Protection Act that is better suited for the AI age. The earlier version of the bill, first introduced in June 2022, prohibited data brokers from collecting and selling health and location data. Four years later, it has been expanded to ban other companies from selling such data to brokers and specifically cover data entered into AI systems.
AI laboratories have focused their attention on building health and medical products. In January, Elon Musk publicly called for people to upload their medical records, such as MRI scans, to Grok, XAI’s chatbot. The same month, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health, a sandboxed tab within ChatGPT that it considers more secure, and encourages users to upload their medical records and other sensitive information. It also introduced ChatGPT for Healthcare, aimed at medical providers. A few days after that, Anthropic quickly followed with Cloud for Healthcare, a “HIPAA-ready” tool for individuals, health providers, and hospitals.
But when faced with data breaches or unauthorized access to data, users are largely at the mercy of AI companies. Data protection for tools like OpenAI and Anthropic “depends largely on what the companies promise in their privacy policies and terms of use,” said Sarah Gerke, a law professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Verge In January. Despite years of efforts, the US lacks an overall federal framework for data privacy.
The bill – which is also sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) – would require the Federal Trade Commission to create a rule within 180 days and would allow the FTC, state attorneys general and affected individuals to sue to enforce it. It would also earmark $1 billion for the FTC over the next 10 years for enforcement.
“It is more important than ever that we crack down on the data brokers who are making huge profits by selling Americans’ most sensitive information,” Senator Warren said in a statement. “Especially as more people feed their personal health data into AI, we need to ensure that information is not exploited by the highest bidder.”
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