Elizabeth Warren Wants To Know Why This Company Was Spying On BLM Protesters - 2020-08-04
Elizabeth Warren Wants To Know Why This Company Was Spying On BLM Protesters August 4, 2020,
Four lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said Tuesday that they have "serious concerns" about data-mining company Mobilewalla following a BuzzFeed News story in June that showed the company had used cellphone location data to predict the race, age, gender, and home location of more than 17,000 Black Lives Matter protesters.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Mobilewalla CEO Anindya Datta, Warren, Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chair Carolyn Maloney demanded more information about the data that the company collects and how it's used. They also asked which, if any, American and non-American governments have accessed the data.
The lawmakers, who said they were "concerned that data collected by Mobilewalla or other data brokers could be used to enable state-sponsored retaliation against protesters," demanded Datta respond by Aug. 17.