Author: Sebastian Klovig Skelton
Publisher: Computer Weekly
Publication Year: 2022
Summary: The following article discusses how LexisNexis, a U.S. data broker, is being sued for allegedly violated consumer privacy and protection rights in Illinois. Essentially, they are aggregating people’s personal information onto their platform where access can be purchased by third parties. This information is both public and non-public, and the purchasers can be private or governmental/law enforcement. Allegedly, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other government agencies are using this data to surveil protestors and immigrants and obtaining data that they would normally not be legally capable of accessing without a court order or subpoena. Last year, LexisNexis signed a nearly $17 million contract with ICE to sell them information, and since then ICE has searched their platform over a million times, generating over 300,000 reports.