Comment by mitchitized
2 years ago
Wouldn't the exact opposite focus have a better effect? Going after the "evil corporations" would mean nobody was collecting the data in the first place, which would also take away the "evil government" as they have nobody to buy that data from.
Right now they just write fat checks to Google, Apple, Amazon and the telcos and badda bing, badda boom it's done.
A government can (in some cases) force a company to collect information they otherwise wouldn't have. The reverse is not true. So I do think the bigger danger here is the legal framework that not only permits this but keeps it secret, rather than the mere fact of information collection.
I suppose if government orgs weren't allowed to buy that data, the value might drop. Significantly? Unclear.