Limiting Big Tech's collection and use of our personal information.

Users should be able to control how apps use our data. We may want to share our data to receive services we sign up for, but apps should be prohibited from collecting more information than they need from us and from surreptitiously tracking us across the web.For example, the information we hand over for one reason — like providing a phone number for security purposes —shouldn’t be shared or sold to third party companies.

Establishing individuals’ rights to control our own data.

We should have rights to easily access, correct, delete or download our personal information and take it with us when we leave an online service. Making data portable by law would let people free themselves from a corporate walled garden and easily use other services. These rights should apply equally to users across languages.

* We support this legislative language for a digital-privacy and civil-rights bill drafted by Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Free Press Action.

Enhancing data transparency.

We deserve to know what kinds of information companies and data brokers are collecting about us and there need to be strict safeguards on what is off limits. Data brokers gather incredibly private details like individuals’ sex, age and gender, geolocation, health information; they can also collect internet search histories that can reveal even more sensitive information like a visit to a mental-health facility or religious site. Companies need to disclose not just what information they collect, but where they get the information; who shares data with them, and with whom they share data; how they analyze data to profile us; how they use our information; how they make decisions about what content, goods or services to offer us; and how they secure our data.

Congress should close loopholes in existing privacy law by banning law enforcement from purchasing information from data brokers without a warrant and companies must conduct routine audits for bias, including an opportunity for independent analysis of algorithmic bias, as well as privacy assessments to determine the risks of this collection. And companies should be required to convey all of this information in two different ways: in an easy-to-understand format proactively notifying users, and in an exhaustive and detailed format for regulators, advocates and researchers for regular review.

* Passing The Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act would be an excellent start.

Preventing discrimination by algorithms.

Everything we do online generates data and every bit of that data can be tracked and used — no matter how innocuous it may appear in isolation — to create dangerous and invasive online profiles. Data feeds powerful algorithms to deliver personalized ads, recommendations and other services. There are some beneficial and harmless uses of these mechanisms when robust transparency and user control are present. But Congress should ban algorithms that profile users and target content to them in ways that constitute age, racial and sex discrimination in employment, housing, lending, and e-commerce. Congress should investigate voting and other civil rights violations that flow from abusive data practices.

Enhancing platform transparency about the impacts of their business models.

Reporting over the past several years has demonstrated that — just as the tobacco companies knew that their products were killing people long before the public was made aware — social media companies knew about how their business models were harming people and communities long before the details came to light. Companies should be required to provide access to researchers and to immediately disclose when they learn their platform algorithms are being used to discriminate against or otherwise harm people; and the companies should actively and in an ongoing manner mitigate those harms and be held accountable for any persisting harms.

Protecting whistleblowers and external researchers.

We must protect whistleblowers who come forward to expose unethical, immoral and discriminatory behaviors, algorithms and practices inside of tech companies. Protection from retaliation, labor violations, baseless lawsuits, and targeted harassment are critical to guaranteeing the rights of whistleblowers. We must also set out explicit protections for external researcher access to platform data.

Expanding Federal Trade Commission oversight.

The FTC should have the power and resources to conduct rulemakings and effectively enforce against and prevent data abuses and other unfair or deceptive practices. Congress cannot anticipate and legislate against all future uses and abuses of data that companies may engage in, so lawmakers should enable the FTC to oversee and respond to future violations. For instance, users shouldn’t have to waive our privacy, quality of service, or other rights just to access a given service when there’s no need for that data to deliver the promised goods.

Enlisting the assistance of other federal agencies that protect the public with specialized expertise.

Federal agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, Department of Labor, Department of Justice and Department of Veterans Affairs, among others, should study how personal information is used in their fields, identify disparities and risks for discrimination, and issue public reports to Congress on a regular basis with special focus on the discriminatory effects on communities of color and non-English speaking groups.

Setting a floor for consumer protection, not a ceiling.

A federal law must refrain from preempting the work that states are doing to build their own consumer-protection or privacy regimes. Many state consumer-protection laws are used to protect marginalized communities. A federal data-privacy law that broadly preempts state laws and weakens these kinds of protections would jeopardize civil rights.