Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Senator pushes law to bar government purchase of location data, cites Palantir and DMV sharing
Loading...
Summary
On the Senate floor an unnamed senator warned that ICE buys Americans' location and biometric data, described Palantir-facilitated facial recognition and DMV data sharing, and said they are working with Senator Markey on legislation to ban such purchases.
An unnamed senator told the Senate that ICE and other federal agencies are buying Americans' private location data from commercial brokers and using tools that collect biometric information and run facial recognition on protesters. The senator said this practice "amounts to labeling people as domestic terrorists just for exercising their First Amendment rights" and called it a threat to constitutional rights.
The senator specifically named Palantir software as a tool used to collect biometric data and run facial recognition, and said ICE has used government records from state motor vehicle departments and other federal agencies without satisfactorily answering how the data are used. "ICE is using Palantir apps to collect biometric data and run protesters through facial recognition systems," the senator said.
Proposing a legislative fix, the senator said, "The Fourth Amendment is not for sale," and described efforts with Senator Markey to convert that idea into law to stop agencies from buying location data. The senator urged states to stop sharing DMV data with federal agencies that would enable the data purchases and said the goal is to bar agencies from acquiring troves of personal information.
The senator framed data privacy as a public-safety issue and urged the Senate to treat it as such; no specific bill numbers were given in the speech and no floor vote occurred during the remarks.
