"Utility giants agree to no longer allow sensitive records to be shared with ICE," 8 Dec. 2021

A nationwide group of utility companies that provided sensitive data from millions of Americans’ cable, phone and power bills to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies has agreed to end the practice in response to concerns the information was being misused.

... The [National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE)] told The Post in a statement that it had “worked with its members to end the practice of licensing members’ header data to third parties. We’re committed to following the law and we routinely revisit our policies and practices to strike the right balance between consumer privacy and those seeking credit.”

... Equifax, one of America’s three major credit-reporting bureaus, said in a statement that NCTUE had for years allowed it to license the data “for law enforcement purposes in compliance with all laws.” The company said the change would “hinder our efforts to expand access to credit and protect against fraud.”

... The data was bundled and sold for use in databases like CLEAR, an “investigation software” service that Thomson Reuters offers via subscriptions to police departments, law firms and government agencies such as ICE, which has paid tens of millions of dollars to access the data.

... Jacinta González, a senior campaign organizer at the Latino civil rights group Mijente, said the change was a “huge step in the right direction” and said some of the people her group has worked with have “legitimately been asking and worried about this.” ... Gonzalez said “ICE and other agencies use data brokers as a way to go around the Fourth Amendment,” the portion of the Constitution that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. “Any sort of loophole can be incredibly dangerous,” she said. “The data never should have been used in this way.”

... A Thomson Reuters specialist told a Texas sheriff’s office in 2019 that CLEAR’s data could help investigators find “people who are not easily traceable via traditional sources.”

... Thomson Reuters has in recent weeks sent messages to customers of its databases, including CLEAR and Westlaw PeopleMap, announcing that Equifax stopped providing utility header data to law enforcement on Oct. 23, and that non-law enforcement customers, such as private investigators, would also no longer receive the data. “We have explored every avenue to continue to provide access to this data. To date, we have not been successful in these efforts,” Thomson Reuters said in one announcement reviewed by The Post.