While businesses and consumers await a national privacy law (that may or may not ever be enacted), and while states across the country have passed their own (and at times inconsistent) privacy statutes, one powerful force remains regularly active in this area: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

In July, Kristin Cohen, the acting associate director of the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, explained that the agency is “committed to fully enforcing the law against illegal use and sharing of highly sensitive data,” such as location, health and other sensitive information. She observed that sensitive data is protected by numerous federal and state laws, including §5 of the FTC Act, and that claims that data is “anonymous” or “has been anonymized” “are often deceptive.” She expressed concern that smartphones, connected cars, wearable fitness trackers, “smart home” products and browsers “are capable of directly observing or deriving sensitive information about users,” and that when consumers use their connected devices—and sometimes even when they do not—these devices “may be regularly pinging cell towers, interacting with WiFi networks, capturing GPS signals, and otherwise creating a comprehensive record of their whereabouts.” This location data “can reveal a lot about people, including where we work, sleep, socialize, worship, and seek medical treatment.”

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