Aren data warehouses regulated by U.S. law?
There is no comprehensive data protection law in the U.S., as there is in most developed countries. Consumers have virtually no control over secondary uses of their data. Beth Givens, Director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, states: “It would not be impossible for an insurance company to attempt to purchase a list of people who have diabetes or asthma in order to compare that information with their own data in order to screen out individuals with pre-existing conditions, or to raise the rates of those who have indicated elsewhere that they have those ailments.” Givens recommends that the U.S. “pass laws that prohibit personal data from being used for unintended secondary purposes. Such laws should be based on the Fair Information Practices (FIPs), a set of privacy principles first established in the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and then expanded by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 1980. The FIPs form the foundation of s
