Local activists raise privacy and oversight concerns about data centers and 'cloud' storage

Jennifer Garner, a member of the Davis County Conservatives board and former candidate, warned that large data centers concentrate personal and corporate data and raise privacy and security concerns. She cited past cyberattacks — noting the University of Utah incident and a ransom payment as an illustration of third‑party risk — and argued that aggregated data builds profiles about individuals that can be used in ways voters should scrutinize.

"They got hacked 2 or 3 years ago, and had to pay 400 something thousand dollars to get axed to get the information back," Garner said, recounting the university incident in the meeting and using it to argue for caution about where data is stored and who governs it. She and other speakers also discussed how moving data storage across state lines can change which legislature and regulations apply.

Garner and other attendees pressed audience members to contact legislators about pending or proposed rules on automatic license‑plate readers (ALPRs). She said current Utah code allows retention of ALPR data for nine months (subject to aggregation and research exceptions), and warned that some models include audio or biometric features and that error rates have produced inaccurate results in some deployments.

Why it matters: As states compete to host data centers, residents must balance economic arguments against privacy and security risks, the speakers said. Garner urged constituents to contact their legislators and press for explicit limits on retention, data sharing and automated analysis.