Consumer Privacy and Surveillance

Consumer Privacy

In today’s digital age, consumers are growing more concerned about the invasions of their privacy by the government and corporations. Government agencies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have sweeping access to the personal information of individuals and user activity online.

Often, legal, financial and medical records are stored online, and the risk that this information is collected, stored and possibly shared with unknown recipients is deeply troubling. For Latinos, immigrant relatives are subject to increased scrutiny of their digital footprint and personal information held in federal agency databases. NHMC has joined coalition efforts to oppose government surveillance programs that more than half of Americans find an unacceptable intrusion in monitoring their communications.

Nearly three-fourths of Americans feel that being in control of who has access to their data is very important to them and almost all consumers agree (91 percent) that they’ve lost control over how companies are collecting their information and using it. NHMC pressures the Federal Communications Commission for stronger internet privacy protections to restore power to Latinos when it comes to who has their data online and how it is used.