A group of utility companies - such as electricity, water, gas or cable television - has pledged to stop sharing information about some 170 million users with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE, for its acronym in English). ), in response to complaints about the use that the federal agency made of these data in the past to deport undocumented people, according to The Washington Post newspaper.
In this way, the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE, for its acronym in English) will stop supplying
names, addresses, telephone numbers and even Social Security numbers
to the Equifax credit company, as required by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, promoter of the change in this practice, through a letter sent in October.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during an operation in Escondido, California, on July 8, 2019.Gregory Bull / AP
Equifax sold this information to the CLEAR program of the information agency Thomson Reuters, which in turn sells its database to government agencies, the police, private groups such as law firms and researchers, among others.
In this way, ICE accessed the data of millions of citizens,
for whom it has paid "tens of millions of dollars,"
according to The Washington Post.
[The Government orders the Border Patrol to improve the treatment of pregnant migrants and migrants with babies]
The information, which people often submit in applications for access to public services, can be used to track where a person lives or where they have moved, who they have lived with, and other details of their personal life.
Although NCTUE ordered Equifax in October to stop providing sensitive information about its customers, data prior to that month is still available.
The group of service companies assures that it has "worked with its partners to end the practice of authorizing [the sending of] customer data to third parties."
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"
We are committed to complying with the law
and routinely review our policies and practices to achieve the proper balance between the privacy of consumers and those seeking credit," he explained in a statement sent to the aforementioned newspaper.
But in his letter, Wyden noted that some of the service companies "
had no idea that their customer data was being sold
" by Equifax "without the knowledge or consent of consumers."
Wyden also denounced this Wednesday that, despite the step taken by NCTUE, "the credit agencies continue to misuse and abuse the data of Americans they receive from the banks."
"The privacy of hundreds of millions of people
should not depend on the goodwill
of private companies concerned about their results," added the senator.
Consequently, he called on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to "protect the personal data of Americans by stopping suspicious data brokers once and for all."