April 25, 2024
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Rep. Bill Foster wants social media companies to disclose how they collect data

‘Consumers, often unknowingly, pay with their unique data, which the companies collect and sell to third parties’

By Alex Ortiz
Congressman Bill Foster speaks during a press conference and interactive tour of the Lion Electric vehicle manufacturing facility. Monday, Mar. 21, 2022, in Joliet.

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster speaks during a press conference and interactive tour of the Lion Electric vehicle manufacturing facility. Monday, Mar. 21, 2022, in Joliet. (Gary Middendorf - gmiddendorf@shawmedia.com/Gary Middendorf)

U.S. Rep. Bill Foster introduced legislation aimed at requiring data harvesting companies, like social media platforms, to tell consumers and financial regulators what data they are collecting.

The Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data (DASHBOARD) Act would also require the companies to tell customers how it is leveraging the data they collect for profit, according to a news release.

“For far too long, social media companies have been telling consumers that their platforms are ‘free’ to use, when that’s not the full story,” Foster, D-Naperville, said in a statement. “Consumers, often unknowingly, pay with their unique data, which the companies collect and sell to third parties for things like targeted ads.”

The DASHBOARD Act would also:

· Require commercial data operators (defined as services with over 100 million monthly active users) to disclose types of data collected as well as regularly provide their users with an assessment of the value of that data.

· Require commercial data operators to file an annual report on the aggregate value of user data they’ve collected, as well as contracts with third parties involving data collection.

· Require commercial data operators to allow users to delete all, or individual fields, of data collected – and disclose to users all the ways in which their data is being used, including any uses not directly related to the online service for which the data was originally collected.

· Empower the SEC to develop methodologies for calculating data value, while encouraging the agency to facilitate flexibility to enable businesses to adopt methodologies that reflect the different uses, sectors and business models.