Lawmakers want to ban AI companies from selling your health data
A revamped data privacy bill would limit selling information to data brokers, including from chatbot services.
Lawmakers want to ban AI companies from selling your health data
A revamped data privacy bill would limit selling information to data brokers, including from chatbot services.
A new proposal would ban the sale of Americans’ health and location information to data brokers — including information people reveal to an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude.
In the coming weeks, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) are planning to debut a new version of the Health and Location Data Protection Act that’s better suited to the AI era. The former version of the bill, first introduced in June 2022, prohibited data brokers from collecting and selling health and location data. Four years later, it’s expanded to ban other companies from selling such data to brokers, and to specifically cover data entered into AI systems.
AI labs have set their sights on building health and medical products. In January, Elon Musk publicly called for people to upload their medical records, like MRI scans, to Grok, xAI’s chatbot. That same month, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health, a sandboxed tab within ChatGPT that it deemed more secure, and encouraged users to upload their medical records and other sensitive information. It also introduced ChatGPT for Healthcare, aimed at medical providers. A few days after that, Anthropic quickly followed up with Claude for Healthcare, a “HIPAA-ready” tool for individuals, health providers, and hospitals.
