US lawmakers propose ban on selling health and location data from AI chats

In short: US lawmakers plan an updated privacy bill that would stop companies, including AI chatbots, from selling Americans’ health and location data to data brokers.

What happened

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania said they plan to introduce a new version of the Health and Location Data Protection Act in the coming weeks.

The earlier version of the bill, first introduced in 2022, focused on data brokers. Data brokers are companies that collect personal information and sell it, a bit like middlemen who trade in details about people.

The updated version would go further. It would ban the sale of Americans’ health and location information to data brokers by other companies too, not just brokers themselves. It would also specifically cover information people type into AI chatbot services such as ChatGPT and Claude.

The proposal comes as more AI companies push into health-related tools. The Verge notes that some companies have encouraged users to upload sensitive medical records, like MRI scans, into chatbot products. OpenAI has also launched ChatGPT Health, which it has described as a more secure space inside ChatGPT for health information.

Why it matters

Many people share very personal details when they ask health questions, or when they use apps that track where they go. If that information can be sold, it can end up in places most people never intended, like marketing databases or other private files. A clear legal ban would reduce the chance that sensitive details from health chats or location history become something that can be bought and sold.

Source: The Verge AI