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Computer Scientists Find Gaps in Privacy Practices of Political Campaign Websites


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Highly private data was often collected alongside contact information, the study found, allowing campaigns to build user profiles without their explicit consent.

According to researchers from the Secure Platforms Lab, data privacy is a bipartisan issue and regulations are needed to prevent political campaigns from misusing user data.

Credit: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

A study by computer scientists at The College of William and Mary in Virginia,, Google, and IBM revealed that interacting with political campaign websites puts people's personal information at risk.

The analysis of 2,060 U.S. House, Senate, and presidential campaigns during the 2020 election cycle found that political campaign websites typically had incomplete or no privacy disclosures, retained private data for an unspecified time period, generally shared data with other campaigns, and even sold the data after the election.

From William & Mary News
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Abstracts Copyright © 2024 SmithBucklin, Washington, D.C., USA


 

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