Congress wants to prevent AI companies from selling your health data

A new proposal would ban the sale of Americans’ private health and location information to data brokers, including information people disclose to AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude.

In the coming weeks, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) plan to launch a new version of the Health Data Protection Act that is more suited to the age of artificial intelligence. The previous version of the bill, was first introduced in June 2022Data brokers are prohibited from collecting and selling health and location data. Four years later, it was expanded to prevent other companies from selling such data to middlemen, and to specifically cover data entered into artificial intelligence systems.

AI labs have set their sights on building health and medical products. In January, Elon Musk He called publicly People upload their medical records, such as MRI scans, to Grok, xAI’s chatbot. In the same month, OpenAI was introduced ChatGPT Validitya protected tab within ChatGPT and considered it more secure, encouraged users to upload their medical records and other sensitive information. As presented ChatGPT HealthcareTargeted at medical service providers. A few days after that, Anthropic quickly followed up with Cloud for Healthcare, a “HIPAA-ready” tool for individuals, healthcare providers, and hospitals.

But when combating data breaches or unauthorized access to data, users are largely at the mercy of AI companies. The data protection of tools like OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s “depends largely on what companies promise in their privacy policies and terms of use,” says Sarah Gehrke, a law professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He said Edge In January. The United States lacks Comprehensive federal framework For data privacy, despite years of attempts.

This bill — also sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — would require the FTC to enact rules within 180 days and would allow the FTC, state attorneys general, and affected individuals to sue to enforce them. The Federal Trade Commission will also be allocated $1 billion over the next 10 years for implementation.

“It is more important than ever that we crack down on data brokers who reap enormous profits from selling Americans’ most sensitive information,” Senator Warren said in a statement. “Especially as more people feed their private health data into AI, we need to ensure the information is not exploited by the highest bidder.”