A New Bill Aims to Limit Collection of Intimate Reproductive Data

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) has put forward legislation to limit how much personal reproductive health data firms can collect, store and share. The My Body, My Data Act aims to shift more responsibility on tech companies and app developers, giving people the right to access or delete their personal data and ask companies to share how their data is collected and used. The bill is being finalized and could be formally introduced when the House is back in session next week. User consent in Apple’s wheelhouse The bill would add an additional layer of user consent, especially for health apps that collect sensitive information. As a result, social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook would need to implement an additional user consent layer, which could potentially curb their ad revenue where lack of user data makes targeting trickier. Platforms are already taking a hit on other privacy initiatives including Apple’s App Transparency Tracking tool (ATT) which Meta has said will contribute to a $10 billion revenue hit for 2022. Privacy Orgs Are Media Agencies’ Next Big Investment Personalized ad targeting lies at the heart of an advertiser’s arsenal, but with the new legislation, “it would make it more challenging for them to get this information,” said Walter Harrison, founder and CEO of first-party data mobile application Tapestri. “But I don’t think [advertisers] should overreact.” Advertisers may expect a higher cost of acquisition because of the user consent provisions in the bill. This means the finer the target audience gets—say, an ad targeted to women between 18 and 25 years old—the more dollars would go into that ad. “I just spent dollars on a consumer who did not respond to my ad," said Harrison, explaining a hypothetical scenario. "And you have to multiply that type of ad spend across thousands of users." Harrison noted that gaining a user's trust through these privacy tools is beneficial in the long run. “We're not talking about digital device ID or cookie anymore. We're talking about someone's health data, which is crucial,” he said. Tapestri recently declined two specific client requests related to Planned Parenthood mobility data from the Illinois-Missouri border. The Chicago-based company has a policy not to monetize healthcare data. (Harrison declined to disclose the companies' names.) Disparate regulations As yet, there are no national regulations on personal data privacy, though some states have taken the initiative to pass their own. Amy Yeung, general counsel and chief privacy officer of data solutions firm Lotame, noted some of the common characteristics across legislation, such as putting the responsibility on corporations to rectify and delete data. “These are characteristics that companies can architect into the workflow as they are designed. That said, there are many mixed signals that do not give clear guidance to companies on how to build these workflows,” she told Adweek. This leaves companies unclear on how they should go about implementing the laws. Gary Kibel, a privacy and data security lawyer at Davis+Gilbert, noted the act is designed to prevent state law enforcement from accessing sensitive data. App developers, meanwhile, could find themselves having a harder time getting users to trust them with their data. Further, some apps are ad-supported, which could entice law enforcement to go after the advertisers supporting these apps with the lens of “aiding and abetting something that’s prohibited by law in their state,” he said. “It's a very big data issue and privacy issue. I don't think it's a very big advertising issue," Kibel said. That said, Harrison believes federal legislation would make advertisers' and app developers' jobs easier. But looking at how the Senate is divided on the biggest of all reproductive issues—the future of Roe v. Wade—Kibel sees little chance of this legislation becoming law. Privacy and the Intersection of Ethics From a Data Perspective