By: EFE
By: EFE
WASHINGTON – A group of large utility companies across the country will stop providing information with personal data of users at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) on the invoices of cable, telephone and electric power , The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
After February the newspaper brought to light the use that ICE made of the information for identify undocumented immigrants, Senator Ron Wyden , a Democrat from Oregon, urged the National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange (NCTUE) to end the sale of personal data such as names, addresses and Social Security numbers of more than 170 millions of people.
The companies that are part of the NCTUE collect that information about users of public services and utilities that are essential in modern life, explained the Post.
NCTUE had passed that mass of information on individuals to Equifax, a firm of credit evaluation that, in turn, sold the information to data banks to which private investigators, government agencies and police forces have access.
Last October, NCTUE ordered Equifax to stop selling the information, but the consumer data accumulated through that month is still available to researchers.
“The sale of personal information that individuals give when they contract services of electricity, water and other necessities of life, without being given option in the matter, is an abuse of the privacy of consumers meters ”, said Wyden in a letter to the Office of Consumer Financial Protection.
NCTUE indicated to the Post that it “has worked with its members to end the practice of giving third parties access to consumer data.”
Jacinta González, campaign organizer for the Latino civil rights group Mijente, argued that “ICE and other agencies use data vendors as a way to circumvent the Fourth Amendment” of the Constitution, which protects against raids and confiscations without valid reason.
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