Gun manufacturing companies have apparently been using personal information for political purposes without authorization.
Canada’s disastrous age verification bill could soon become law as quickly as next month. One of the controversial aspects of the bill is the fact that it compels adult websites to collect highly sensitive personal information from users. That information could then be stored somewhere. While the law asks politely that such personal information shouldn’t be used for other purposes, there are no penalties for misusing that personal information. As a final kick in the nuts, existing privacy laws are in such a sorry state, if personal information is misused, the most the government can do is send a strongly worded letter saying, “don’t do that again.”
To be clear, sites like Pornhub have openly contemplated blocking Canada instead of compromising the security of their users – as required by the bill. If precedence is anything to go by, chances are, they will follow through with that in Canada as well and block Canadian users from visiting the site in an effort to be in compliance with the up and coming law. Unfortunately, that leaves the door open to other less scrupulous website operators who might make a big splash by saying that they figured it all out and that users can safely use their site all the while quietly collecting that personal information for malicious purposes.
Supporters of this legislation, of course, would likely have you believe that such a scenario is unlikely because the law “protects” people’s personal information. In no way could they ever possibly dream of using that personal information for personal gain, right? After all, name an industry that took people’s personal information and used it for personal gain!
Well, happy to oblige. An investigation by ProPublica has found that gun manufacturers have taken the personal information of their customers and used it for political purposes. All of this without the consent of the customer in the first place.
For years, America’s most iconic gun-makers turned over sensitive personal information on hundreds of thousands of customers to political operatives.
Those operatives, in turn, secretly employed the details to rally firearm owners to elect pro-gun politicians running for Congress and the White House, a ProPublica investigation has found.
The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America.
At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The NSSF then entered the gun owners’ details into what would become a massive database.
The data initially came from decades of warranty cards filled out by customers and returned to gun manufacturers for rebates and repair or replacement programs.
A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s through today found that some promised customers their information would be kept strictly confidential. Others said some information could be shared with third parties for marketing and sales. None of the cards informed buyers their details would be used by lobbyists and consultants to win elections.
The gun industry launched the project approximately 17 months before the 2000 election as it grappled with a cascade of financial, legal and political threats. Within three years, the NSSF’s database — filled with warranty card information and supplemented with names from voter rolls and hunting licenses — contained at least 5.5 million people.
It’s worth reiterating that if various porn websites actually did this under Canada’s age verification bill (Bill S-210), they’d face no real repercussions. Just a strongly worded letter from Canada’s privacy commissioners thanks to the woefully outdated privacy laws on the books today and that would be the end of it as far as the government was concerned.
This very scenario, which we are plainly seeing play out in the American gun manufacturing industry, only takes into account what the companies targeted by the bill could theoretically do. That’s not even getting in to unauthorized third parties willing to use that personal information for malicious purposes. That also played out earlier this year when Australia’s age verification system for alcohol was breached earlier this year.
The scenarios about people’s personal information being misused under age verification laws isn’t exclusively held in hypothetical scenarios. They are already playing out in real life. Some politician’s seem only intend on ramming this legislation through parliament screaming “damn the consequences”, but the reality is that real people are going to get hurt by this. This as it ends up solving nothing in the end.
