Sponsors (5)
The bill sharply strengthens privacy protections and enforcement for sensitive location and health-derived data (including inferred data and AI-handled signals) and funds the FTC to act, at the cost of imposing compliance burdens, litigation risk, and revenue/innovation impacts on businesses, researchers, and some information actors.
Consumers — especially patients (including those with chronic conditions), Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries, pregnant people, and people with disabilities — gain stronger privacy protections because the bill bars data brokers from selling or distributing location- and health-related signals and closes the loophole for inferred data while explicitly treating health/location/IP-linked data as "data."
Consumers and harmed parties get more effective enforcement and remedies: the FTC is required to promulgate rules quickly and is given expanded powers (injunctions, deletion, damages, restitution, disgorgement, civil penalties), state attorneys general and private plaintiffs have routes to seek relief, and the FTC's jurisdiction is extended to cover nonprofits.
Clearer statutory definitions (including explicit coverage of AI and AI systems, and naming pregnancy/miscarriage) and an expedited FTC rulemaking timeline create a federal standard to stop abusive data practices and help ensure AI-driven products that handle sensitive signals are within scope.
Data brokers, companies that sell location/health signals, small businesses, and nonprofits face substantial lost revenue and business disruption; large statutory penalties (up to 15% of a parent's prior-year revenue) could force business changes, layoffs, service reductions, or higher prices for consumers.
Public-health researchers, hospitals, and services that rely on brokered location or health signals may lose access to data needed for surveillance, research, and personalized care, potentially hindering innovation and public-health analytics.
Expanded private rights of action, punitive damages, attorney fee shifting, and heavier civil penalties may trigger more litigation, increase legal costs for businesses and nonprofits, and encourage defensive business practices that could raise consumer prices.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits data brokers from selling or sharing individuals’ location and health data, empowers the FTC to enforce the ban, and provides $1B to the FTC for enforcement.
Official title: Prohibit data brokers from selling and transferring certain sensitive data.
Introduced July 13, 2026 by Elizabeth Warren · Last progress July 13, 2026
Prohibits data brokers from selling, licensing, sharing, or otherwise providing any individual’s location data or health data (including inferred health information and searches) and bars other persons from providing those categories of data to data brokers. It exempts HIPAA-covered activities, newsworthy reporting, and valid individual authorizations, directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to define key terms and issue implementing rules within 180 days, makes violations enforceable under the FTC Act with civil penalties and private rights of action, and funds the FTC with $1 billion for enforcement and implementation.