Data about your body is up for sale. Who's buying it?

This episode of Science Friday explores the growing commercialization and surveillance of biometric data, highlighting how personal information like heart rate, gait, facial features, and smartphone usage patterns are being collected at an unprecedented scale. Anne Toomey McKenna, an attorney specializing in privacy and biometric surveillance, explains that biometrics extend far beyond facial recognition to include subtle, identifiable traits from everyday devices—from smart cars to grocery store cameras. She reveals that this data is not only used for targeted advertising but also sold to insurance companies, financial institutions, and law enforcement agencies through unregulated data markets. The rise of AI enables hyper-specific micro-targeting, making individuals highly identifiable even in large datasets, undermining the myth of anonymity. McKenna emphasizes that the idea of having 'nothing to hide' is dangerously misleading, especially in light of shifting laws and the potential for discrimination in employment, insurance, and healthcare based on collected data. The episode calls for urgent federal data privacy regulation, noting the U.S. lags behind other nations in protecting citizens from surveillance capitalism.