Congress Requests Emergency Meeting On Location Privacy

A key House panel requested an emergency briefing from the Federal Communications Commission to determine why the agency has not prevented wireless carriers from selling consumers' location data. The request followed reports that wireless providers sell location data to third parties, despite pledging to not do so after investigations last year. In 2007, EPIC urged the FCC to establish privacy safeguards for location data. And in 2010 EPIC wrote to the House Commerce Committee that "Locational privacy concerns are substantial and growing more severe." EPIC also filed a friend of the court brief in 2017 in the landmark location privacy case, Carpenter v. United States. A recent article by EPIC President Marc Rotenberg, for the American Constitution Society, sets out recommendations for Congress after the Carpenter decision.