As congressional Republicans begin to fill in the details of President Donald Trump’s economic agenda, one proposal is expanded work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid.
Human rights conferences can be sobering, to say the least. They highlight the David vs. Goliath situation of small civil society organizations fighting to center human rights in decisions about technology, sometimes challenging the priorities of much more powerful governments and technology companies. But 2025's RightsCon, the 13th since the event began as the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference in 2011, felt especially urgent.
Tax returns and financial filings, health records, education records, and crime data are just some of detailed and highly sensitive data that governments have about people. Businesses also have huge archives of sensitive data, including consumer purchases, cellphone mobility traces, and video surveillance.
Today a tiny fraction of these data are released as open data or sold as de-identified data. The rest are locked up, unable to benefit society or promote new economic activity. Worse, much of that allegedly de-identified data can actually be re-identified.
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