Big Tech is tracking your every move. From your conversations with friends and family that you thought were private, to your online searches across the internet and shopping history, and even your current location. Many of these companies are monetizing that data and weaponizing it to erode your agency, your rights, and your identity. Below are five ways Big Tech, data brokers, and other bad actors in the information ecosystem are collecting and exploiting your personal information:

“A six-year span of internal Google reports, unearthed by 404 Media, exposes a troubling array of privacy breaches affecting everything from children's voice data to the home addresses of unsuspecting carpool users.” 

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“This internal database, not previously exposed to the public eye, catalogs various incidents ranging from trivial mishaps—like an inadvertently sent email containing sensitive personal information—to major security lapses, including significant data leaks and even potential raids on Google’s own offices.” 

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“This breach, which left sensitive data like geolocation information and IP addresses accessible via the platform’s page source, lingered undetected for more than a year, affecting numerous users, including children.”

“Almost no one was surprised that Google Maps accessed location information, for example, but respondents had a strong negative reaction when they learned that the “Brightest Flashlight” app tracked their location, said Jason Hong, an associate professor at school.”

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“Of the top 100 Android apps, 56 collected location information, device identifiers and/or contact lists, according to the university’s research. Users, however, often had no idea such data was being collected or how it might be used.”

“Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies—largely unregulated, little scrutinized—are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files."

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“If you could see the full trove, you might never use your phone the same way again."

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“You’ve probably never heard of most of the companies—and yet to anyone who has access to this data, your life is an open book.” 

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“… this file represents just a small slice of what’s collected and sold every day by the location tracking industry—surveillance so omnipresent in our digital lives that it now seems impossible for anyone to avoid.” 

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“Within America’s own representative democracy, citizens would surely rise up in outrage if the government attempted to mandate that every person above the age of 12 carry a tracking device that revealed their location 24 hours a day.” 

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“Now, as the decade ends, tens of millions of Americans, including many children, find themselves carrying spies in their pockets during the day and leaving them beside their beds at night — even though the corporations that control their data are far less accountable than the government would be.” 

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“In absence of a federal privacy law, the industry has largely relied on self-regulation.”

“Facebook, for example, collects location-related information aside from your phone’s GPS. It still tracks where you are through IP addresses, ‘check-ins or events you attend. 

“Twitter also ‘requires’ information about your current location, ‘which we get from signals such as your IP address or device settings.’ This is so it can ‘securely and reliably set up and maintain your account.’”

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“… the data that dating app Tinder collects is shared with other members of the Match Group…” 

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“Facebook even tracks what you do when you’re not signed into it – or when you don’t have an account.”

“You know you have a credit score. Did you know that you might also have a driving score?” 

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“‘No one who realizes what they’re doing would consent,’ said Kathleen Lomax, a New Jersey mother who recently canceled her subscription to Life360 when she found out this was happening.” 

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“Insurers are also getting driving data directly from people’s cars.” 

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“But any car with an internet connection, which most modern cars have, can send data back to the automaker.”

The American Privacy Rights Act is Here to Help

Most people are unaware about what happens with the data that is collected from them. Americans don’t trust Big Tech and other companies that are exploiting their personal data to target and manipulate people. The American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) is needed to give Americans a unified set of privacy rights. 

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, led by Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), is fighting to ensure that Americans are protected from exploitation, including from Big Tech, data brokers, and other bad actors in the big data business. APRA creates a comprehensive, national data privacy standard to ensure that all Americans are protected.  

APRA puts all Americans back in control of their personal data, protecting them and their kids. By minimizing the amount of data that can be collected, processed, retained, and transferred, Americans will have the right to control where their personal information goes and can ensure that Big Tech, data brokers, and other bad actors are held accountable.