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Two ideas - and the politicians pushing them to help renters across the nation - might need to work together as a long-term trend of worsening affordability continues. About a third of Australian households rent but the impacts threaten to hurt everyone. “Increases in rent have actually been contributing to the inflation ... managing rent rises is really quite critical, not just for the households renting, but for the wider economy,” economic consultancy firm SGS Economics and Planning principal and partner Ellen Witte told AAP. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Witte is the lead author of the firm’s latest rental affordability index released on Friday alongside low-income housing advocates National Shelter. A decade into tracking rental affordability, the index warns the housing crisis has deepened as rents continue to grow faster than wages. “That’s a long-term trend ... now of course, especially with the cost-of-living crisis and interest rates that have gone up, a lot of landlords have sought to recoup those extra costs from tenants, and sometimes more than that,” Witte said. The latest index adds a new category for places where the rent is “critically unaffordable” and would require households to pay 75 per cent of their income. “Obviously, that’s not doable, so we now see entire cohorts of the population being pushed out of key areas where there are a lot of jobs, services and transport,” Witte said. Addressing rental affordability is often relegated as a job for states and councils, while those struggling to afford rent in capital cities are sometimes told to move elsewhere. “That argument doesn’t go up anymore, because it’s not affordable to rent anywhere,” Witte said. “There’s a strong case to nationally start to really tackle this.” More social housing, tax reforms and “some guardrails around rent increases” were among potential solutions but there was no quick fix, Witte said. The ACT is one place rental affordability has improved (Tasmania being the other, where the economy and population growth have both slowed) and Witte said it was due to the territory introducing a cap to prevent excessive increases. “The investment market didn’t collapse - people are still investing,” she said. In national action to help renters, the Greens want caps on rental increases, while the Labor government has boosted Commonwealth Rent Assistance, which not everyone is eligible for. It also risks funnelling taxpayer money to landlords if there are no restrictions on increases amid low vacancy rates. “If there is a subsidy going out ... that just goes straight into increases of rent prices,” Witte said. “We don’t necessarily say cap it entirely, but just be reasonable - or just prevent excessive rent increases.”
Oregon already secured its spot in the Big Ten championship game, but the top-ranked Ducks have plenty to play for in their regular-season finale. Revenge may be on Oregon's mind when the Ducks host longtime rival Washington on Saturday in Eugene, Ore. Oregon (11-0, 8-0 Big Ten) would perhaps be closing in on its second straight College Football Playoff appearance had the Huskies (6-5, 4-4) not dealt the Ducks their only two losses last season. Washington edged Oregon 36-33 in Seattle last October, then slipped past the Ducks 34-31 in the Pac-12 title game to secure a playoff spot for the second time in school history. Both teams joined the Big Ten in August. Third-year Oregon head coach Dan Lanning is 33-5 leading the Ducks. But he remains winless against the Huskies (0-3). Oregon plots to sprint out of its late-season bye after using time to heal injuries, but Lanning doesn't believe the break should stall the flow of an undefeated season. "It's always about what we're able to do on the field. Motivation is overrated," Lanning said. "Our guys have to want to go out there and execute at a really high level. Since the beginning of the season we've talked about playing our best football at the end of November. We're there. This is our opportunity to go play our best football against a good team." The Ducks could have star wide receiver Tez Johnson back from a shoulder injury this week. Johnson has missed the past two games. That would be good news for quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who would regain the team's leader in receptions (64), receiving yards (649) and receiving touchdowns (eight). Washington, under first-year head coach Jedd Fisch, is 63-48-5 all-time against Oregon but is just 1-12-1 when facing the No. 1-ranked team in the country. The Huskies are led on offense by running back Jonah Coleman, who has racked up 1,008 yards and nine scores on the ground this season. Coleman averages 5.8 yards per carry and has 36 runs of at least 10 yards. In the passing game, wide receiver Denzel Boston is tied for the Big Ten lead with nine in touchdown catches and ranks sixth in the conference with 764 receiving yards. Whom Boston will be catching passes from is not yet known, however. Washington has not revealed whether Will Rogers or Demond Williams Jr. will start at quarterback. Rogers has started every game for the Huskies but was benched in favor of Williams two weeks ago after throwing a pair of interceptions in a 31-19 win over UCLA. Fisch said he has a "good idea" of how he will use his quarterbacks on Saturday, and while he wouldn't go as far as to name a starter, he did say Rogers responded well in practices last week. "On the same token, Demond's energy and Demond's confidence showed up. His ability to jump right in and feel really good about leading the group whenever it was his turn... he did a really nice job there as well," Fisch told Seattle Sports. "I think both guys responded well to the week of practice, and now, really, it's important for us that the guy we believe will start the game gets a significant amount of reps in practice week. But as you know, we're not afraid to play two quarterbacks." --Field Level MediaTrump chooses Pam Bondi for attorney general pick after Gaetz withdraws
Ole Miss vs. Mississippi State prediction, pick, spread, game odds, where to watch, TV channel, live stream
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reacted to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's announcement about the use of an Oreshnik medium-range missile against Ukraine. Source: Zelenskyy on X (Twitter) Quote: "Today, Putin has admitted taking the second step this year towards escalating and expanding this war. A new ballistic missile was used. Putin struck our city of Dnipro – one of the largest cities in Ukraine. This is a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war - a cynical violation of the UN Charter by Russia. Let me emphasise: this is already Russia’s second step towards escalation this year. The first such step was involving North Korea in the war against Ukraine with a contingent of at least 11,000 soldiers." Details: The president said that Putin has taken both of these steps while ignoring global calls to avoid escalation. "He disregards calls from China, Brazil, European countries, the US and other countries," Zelenskyy stated. The president also recalled that Ukraine has used long-range weapons before, which is not a new development. Quote: "And we have every right to do so under international law. Our right to self-defence is the same as that of any other nation. When Russian missiles hit our cities, when Iranian-made Shahed drones attack Ukraine every night, when a North Korean contingent is deployed on our border, Putin is not only prolonging the war—he is spitting in the face of those in the world who genuinely want peace to be restored. The world must respond. Right now, there is no strong reaction from the world. Putin is very sensitive to such reactions. He is testing you, dear partners. It is clear to everyone who the sole culprit of this war is – who started it on 24 February and who continues to pour all resources into its continuation. He must be stopped. A lack of tough reactions to Russia’s actions sends a message that such behaviour is acceptable. This is what Putin is doing." Support UP or become our patron !The End of an Era: PlayStation Veteran Shuhei Yoshida Retires From Sony
BOSTON (AP) — Boston Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis is slated make his season debut Monday night against the Los Angeles Clippers following offseason ankle surgery. The 7-foot-2 Latvian center was upgraded from probable to available about an 90 minutes before tipoff, though Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said how much he'd play was to be determined. Veteran center Al Horford, who has started 14 of the Celtics 17 games this season, is out Monday with an illness. Fellow big man Luke Kornet is also sitting out as he continues to deal with hamstring tightness. “He has worked hard, he's in good shape. We'll put him in position to be healthy and be successful and do what's best for the team,” Mazzulla said. “He's been pretty consistent, just based on his work ethic and what he's done to get to this point.” Porzingis had surgery to fix a tear in the tissue that holds the ankle tendons in place. The issue limited him to seven playoff games during the Celtics' NBA championship run last season. Boston is 14-3 this season, but has missed his presence on the inside, with teams routinely outscoring the defending champions in the paint. Mazzulla acknowledged that how Porzingis plays on the offensive end, particularly how he operates sometimes out of the high and low post, will force some adjustment from how the team has played this season without him on the floor. “I think last year we had an opportunity to see how teams were guarding him,” Mazzulla said. "That'll take a little bit of time to figure out what the coverages are, just get used to that spacing. That'll take some time. ... Then we'll figure out how we go from there." The original window for Porzingis' return following surgery was five to six months. But Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said before the season that they didn't want to hold to a specific timeline because of the uniqueness of the injury. Porzingis injured his ankle in Game 2 of the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks and missed the next two games. He returned for Game 5, contributing five points and one rebound in 16 minutes as the Celtics beat Dallas 106-88 to clinch their record 18th title. Porzingis averaged 20 points and seven rebounds in 57 games for last season. He signed a $60 million, two-year extension with Boston in the summer of 2023 after the Celtics acquired him in a trade with Washington. AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nbaWINNIPEG - Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew offered condolences Monday to the families affected by two fatal police shootings in the province and spoke to the challenge faced by officers on the front lines. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * WINNIPEG - Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew offered condolences Monday to the families affected by two fatal police shootings in the province and spoke to the challenge faced by officers on the front lines. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? WINNIPEG – Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew offered condolences Monday to the families affected by two fatal police shootings in the province and spoke to the challenge faced by officers on the front lines. “I want to take the opportunity to thank police officers across this province who go to work and keep us safe each and every day,” Kinew said while at the convention for the Association of Manitoba Municipalities. The night before, a street standoff involving police left one man dead and an officer recovering from a stab wound to the throat. Kinew told reporters no one wants to see a person die after an altercation with police but officers are often tasked with responding to high-risk situations. “Police officers have a difficult job to do, that’s at the best of times, so I support law enforcement,” he said. “When we’re thinking about the holidays and people going to the malls and people going to the shopping areas around the province, people have got to be safe.” Police were called early Sunday evening to the Unicity shopping area in the city’s far west about an officer who had been stabbed in the throat and a suspect who had been shot. Acting police Chief Art Stannard later told reporters that officers had been in the area as part of a retail theft initiative, which sees police work in hot spots in the city that have seen a rise in retail theft and violent crime. Police said the man who was shot was given CPR at the scene before he was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead. They said the injured officer was also transported to hospital and treated for his injury. Police declined to provide more details about what happened, including the age or identity of the man killed, noting the case is being reviewed by the police watchdog agency — the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba. The agency confirmed it’s investigating the death of the man but did not provide any other details. Videos circulating on social media appear to show a man being shot outside a bus shelter. In a 24-second clip, two police officers tell a person “to put it down” and “to drop it.” The man appears to advance toward the officers and at least one officer begins shooting. It’s not clear in the video whether the man who was shot was holding a weapon. Stannard told reporters Sunday he’s aware of the video and asked the public to avoid rushing to judgment. Coun. Markus Chambers, chair of the Winnipeg Police Board, said Sunday’s incident is tragic for all involved and noted it could renew calls for the board to implement body cameras. “Body-worn cameras likely wouldn’t have resulted in this not happening, but it is a mechanism of looking at the accountability around what happened,” Chambers said. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The councillor said the board would be monitoring the rollout of body cameras in RCMP detachments across the province to see if they’re effective. It was the second fatal police shooting in three days. A 17-year-old boy from Norway House Cree Nation was shot and killed by an RCMP officer on Friday. Mounties said they received a report that a man was agitated and armed with an edged weapon in a home on the First Nation, north of Winnipeg. RCMP said the teen was outside with the weapon when officers arrived and, despite numerous orders to drop it, he moved toward them and was shot. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024. Advertisement Advertisement
What's New Luigi Mangione's recent court appearance has triggered an unexpected surge in merchandise sales, with items ranging from his sweater to his backpack gaining massive online attention. Retailers and independent creators are scrambling to meet the demand, as viral buzz turns everyday products into highly sought-after collectibles. The Context Mangione, a 26-year-old accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson , faces charges of gun possession and forgery. His arrest has inspired a wave of online merchandise, including keychains, mugs, and clothing, some featuring the chilling words etched on the bullets linked to the crime. Luigi Mangione's Sweater Sells Out at Nordstrom Retailers are experiencing a boom in sales of Mangione-related merchandise. A burgundy Merino crewneck sweater worn by Mangione during his court appearance sold out at Nordstrom within a day, leading the retailer to announce plans to restock. The $120 sweater gained viral fame after courtroom photos of Mangione circulated online. "It's not every day you see a legal proceeding spark a fashion craze," quipped one Reddit user, while others nicknamed the item the "Mangione Merino." Social media buzz has been a major driver behind the unexpected demand. Luigi Mangione's Peak Design Backpack Interest in Mangione's accessories has also skyrocketed, particularly his Peak Design Everyday Backpack V1. Since news of the shooting broke, searches for the discontinued model have surged, drawing attention to the cult-like fascination surrounding the case. In response to rumors that Peak Design employees assisted law enforcement in tracking Mangione through the bag's serial number, the company issued a statement. "We have not provided customer information to the police and would only do so under a subpoena," CEO Peter Dering told The Verge . He clarified that the V1 backpacks lack serial numbers, a feature introduced only in V2 models. Despite these reassurances, some social media users accused the company of "snitching" after Dering admitted to sharing details about the bag with law enforcement. The backlash highlights growing public sensitivity to privacy concerns and corporate involvement in legal matters. Etsy Sellers Report High Sales on Luigi Mangione Merch Independent creators on Etsy are also benefiting from the Mangione craze. Shops offering T-shirts, mugs, and other custom merchandise inspired by his court appearance have reported a significant boost in sales. However, the surge in demand has brought challenges. Some Etsy sellers have received takedown notices , which they suspect are part of corporate efforts to protect Mangione's image. This has led to backlash, with critics accusing larger companies of unfairly targeting small businesses. "We're just responding to demand like everyone else," one seller told Newsweek , requesting anonymity for her shop. What People Are Saying @NLCONSNL, an Internet user, on X: "It is a horror story for the relatives of the CEO. May God be with them." @Warzoid, an Internet user, on Bluesky: "Support for Luigi Mangione isn't about looks or crime. It's about decades of economic injustice & a trolley problem politicians refuse to address". What's Next Mangione is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, facing both state and federal charges, including murder and terrorism-related offenses. His next court appearance is on January 18, 2025, in federal court in New York, where he faces charges that could result in the death penalty. On February 21, 2025, he will appear in Manhattan state court, where he has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges as an act of terrorism.The Reagan movie is a timely reminder of why leadership matters
One of my top shows of 2024 actually premiered in 2021. That’s because it took a couple of years for the Australian series “The Newsreader” to make its way Stateside. Alas, it was only legal to stream in the U.S. for a handful of weeks in September and then — pffft! — it was gone before most people had even heard of it. Well, I have great news. The show will be available once again, this time via Sundance Now (accessible through the AMC+ streaming platform), which has licensed the first season. Premiering Dec. 19, it stars Anna Torv (“Fringe”) and Sam Reid (“Interview with the Vampire”) as TV reporters in Melbourne, circa 1986. At the outset, Reid’s character exudes big loser energy, which is such an amusing contrast to his work as Lestat. The show is unexpectedly funny and terrifically Machiavellian in its portrayal of small-time office politics, and I’m thrilled audiences in the U.S. will get another shot at watching it. Overall, 2024 offered a modestly better lineup than usual, but I’m not sure it felt that way. Too often the good stuff got drowned out by Hollywood’s pointless and endless pursuit of rebooting intellectual property (no thank you, Apple’s “Presumed Innocent” ) and tendency to stretch a perfectly fine two-hour movie premise into a saggy multi-part series (“Presumed Innocent” again!). There were plenty of shows I liked that didn’t make this year’s list, including ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and CBS’ “Ghosts” (it’s heartening to see the network sitcom format still thriving in the streaming era), as well as Netflix’s “A Man on the Inside” (Ted Danson’s charisma selling an unlikely premise) and Hulu’s “Interior Chinatown” (a high-concept parody of racial stereotypes and cop show tropes, even if it couldn’t sustain the idea over 10 episodes). Maybe it just felt like we were having more fun this year, with Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple” (Nicole Kidman leading a traditional manor house mystery reinterpreted with an American sensibility) and Hulu’s “Rivals” (the horniest show of 2024, delivered with a wink in the English countryside). I liked what I saw of Showtime’s espionage thriller “The Agency” (although the bulk of episodes were unavailable as of this writing). The deluge of remakes tends to make me cringe, but this year also saw a redo of Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” on Netflix that was far classier than most of what’s available on the streamer. Starring Andrew Scott, I found it cool to the touch, but the imagery stayed with me. Shot in black and white, it has an indelible visual language courtesy of director of photography Robert Elswit, whether capturing a crisp white business card against the worn grain wood of a bar top, or winding stairways that alternately suggest a yawning void or a trap. As always, if you missed any of these shows when they originally premiered — the aforementioned titles or the Top 10 listed below — they are all available to stream. Top 10 streaming and TV shows of 2024, in alphabetical order: The least cynical reality show on television remains as absorbing as ever in Season 4, thanks to the probing questions and insights from the show’s resident therapist, Dr. Orna Guralnik. Everything is so charged. And yet the show has a soothing effect, predicated on the idea that human behavior (and misery) isn’t mysterious or unchangeable. There’s something so optimistic in that outlook. Whether or not you relate to the people featured on “Couples Therapy” — or even like them as individuals — doesn’t matter as much as Guralnik’s reassuring presence. Created by and starring Diarra Kilpatrick, the eight-episode series defies categorization in all the right ways. Part missing-person mystery, part comedy about a school teacher coming to grips with her impending divorce, and part drama about long-buried secrets, it has tremendous style right from the start — sardonic, knowing and self-deprecating. The answers to the central mystery may not pack a satisfying punch by the end, but the road there is as entertaining and absorbing as they come. We need more shows like this. A comedy created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez (of the antic YouTube series “The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo”), the show has a sensibility all its own, despite a handful of misinformed people on social media calling it a ripoff of “Abbott Elementary.” There’s room enough in the TV landscape for more than one sitcom with a school setting and “English Teacher” has a wonderfully gimlet-eyed point of view of modern high school life. I’m amused that so much of its musical score is Gen-X coded, because that neither applies to Alvarez (a millennial) nor the fictional students he teaches. So why does the show feature everything from Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” to Exposé’s “Point of No Return”? The ’80s were awash in teen stories and maybe the show is using music from that era to invoke all those tropes in order to better subvert them. It’s a compelling idea! It’s streaming on Hulu and worth checking out if you haven’t already. A one-time tennis phenom accuses her former coach of coercing her into a sexual relationship in this British thriller. The intimacy between a coach and athlete often goes unexplored, in real-life or fictional contexts and that’s what the show interrogates: When does it go over the line? It’s smart, endlessly watchable and the kind of series that would likely find a larger audience were it available on a more popular streamer. There’s real tenderness in this show. Real cruelty, too. It’s a potent combination and the show’s third and strongest season won it an Emmy for best comedy. Jean Smart’s aging comic still looking for industry validation and Hannah Einbinder’s needy Gen-Z writer are trapped in an endless cycle of building trust that inevitably gives way to betrayal. Hollywood in a nutshell! “Hacks” is doing variations on this theme every season, but doing it in interesting ways. Nobody self-sabotages their way to success like these two. I was skeptical about the show when it premiered in 2022 . Vampire stories don’t interest me. And the 1994 movie adaptation starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt wasn’t a persuasive argument to the contrary. But great television is great television and nothing at the moment is better than this show. It was ignored by Emmy voters in its initial outing but let’s hope Season 2 gets the recognition it deserves. Under showrunner Rolin Jones, the adaptation of Anne Rice’s novels is richly written, thrillingly inhabited by its cast and so effortlessly funny with a framing device — the interview of the title — that is thick with intrigue and sly comedy. I wouldn’t categorize the series as horror. It’s not scary. But it is tonally self-assured and richly made, rarely focused on the hunt for dinner but on something far more interesting: The melodrama of vampire existence, with its combination of boredom and lust and tragedy and zingers. Already renewed for Season 3, it has an incredible cast (a thrilling late-career boost for Eric Bogosian) and is well worth catching up with if you haven’t already. It’s been too long since the pleasures of banter fueled a romantic comedy in the spirit of “When Harry Met Sally.” But it’s all over the place in “Nobody Wants This,” one of the best shows on Netflix in recent memory. Renewed for a second season, it stars Kristen Bell as a humorously caustic podcaster and Adam Brody as the cute and emotionally intelligent rabbi she falls for. On the downside, the show has some terrible notions about Jewish women that play into controlling and emasculating stereotypes. You hate to see it in such an otherwise sparkling comedy, because overall Bell and Brody have an easy touch that gives the comedy real buoyancy. I suspect few people saw this three-part series on PBS Masterpiece, but it features a terrific performance by Helena Bonham Carter playing the real-life, longtime British soap star Noele “Nolly” Gordon, who was unceremoniously sacked in 1981. She’s the kind of larger-than-life showbiz figure who is a bit ridiculous, a bit imperious, but also so much fun. The final stretch of her career is brought to life by Carter and this homage — to both the soap she starred in and the way she carried it on her back — is from Russell T. Davies (best known for the “Doctor Who” revival). For U.S. viewers unfamiliar with the show or Gordon, Carter’s performance has the benefit of not competing with a memory as it reanimates a slice of British pop culture history from the analog era. The year is 1600 and a stubborn British seaman piloting a Dutch ship washes ashore in Japan. That’s our entry point to this gorgeously shot story of power games and political maneuvering among feudal enemies. Adapted from James Clavell’s 1975 novel by the married team of Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, it is filled with Emmy-winning performances (for Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada; the series itself also won best drama) and unlike something like HBO’s far clunkier “House of the Dragon,” which tackles similar themes, this feels like the rare show created by, and for, adults. The misfits and losers of Britain’s MI5 counterintelligence agency — collectively known as the slow horses, a sneering nickname that speaks to their perceived uselessness — remain as restless as ever in this adaptation of Mick Herron’s Slough House spy novels. As a series, “Slow Horses” doesn’t offer tightly plotted clockwork spy stories; think too deeply about any of the details and the whole thing threatens to fall apart. But on a scene-by-scene basis, the writing is a winning combination of wry and tension-filled, and the cumulative effect is wonderfully entertaining. Spies have to deal with petty office politics like everyone else! It’s also one of the few shows that has avoided the dreaded one- or two-year delay between seasons, which has become standard on streaming. Instead, it provides the kind of reliability — of its characters but also its storytelling intent — that has become increasingly rare. Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.By Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times (TNS) Every day millions of people share more intimate information with their accessories than they do with their spouse. Wearable technology — smartwatches, smart rings, fitness trackers and the like — monitors body-centric data such as your heart rate, steps taken and calories burned, and may record where you go along the way. Like Santa Claus, it knows when you are sleeping (and how well), it knows when you’re awake, it knows when you’ve been idle or exercising, and it keeps track of all of it. People are also sharing sensitive health information on health and wellness apps , including online mental health and counseling programs. Some women use period tracker apps to map out their monthly cycle. These devices and services have excited consumers hoping for better insight into their health and lifestyle choices. But the lack of oversight into how body-centric data are used and shared with third parties has prompted concerns from privacy experts, who warn that the data could be sold or lost through data breaches, then used to raise insurance premiums, discriminate surreptitiously against applicants for jobs or housing, and even perform surveillance. The use of wearable technology and medical apps surged in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, but research released by Mozilla on Wednesday indicates that current laws offer little protection for consumers who are often unaware just how much of their health data are being collected and shared by companies. “I’ve been studying the intersections of emerging technologies, data-driven technologies, AI and human rights and social justice for the past 15 years, and since the pandemic I’ve noticed the industry has become hyper-focused on our bodies,” said Mozilla Foundation technology fellow Júlia Keserű, who conducted the research. “That permeates into all kinds of areas of our lives and all kinds of domains within the tech industry.” The report “From Skin to Screen: Bodily Integrity in the Digital Age” recommends that existing data protection laws be clarified to encompass all forms of bodily data. It also calls for expanding national health privacy laws to cover health-related information collected from health apps and fitness trackers and making it easier for users to opt out of body-centric data collections. Researchers have been raising alarms about health data privacy for years. Data collected by companies are often sold to data brokers or groups that buy, sell and trade data from the internet to create detailed consumer profiles. Body-centric data can include information such as the fingerprints used to unlock phones, face scans from facial recognition technology, and data from fitness and fertility trackers, mental health apps and digital medical records. One of the key reasons health information has value to companies — even when the person’s name is not associated with it — is that advertisers can use the data to send targeted ads to groups of people based on certain details they share. The information contained in these consumer profiles is becoming so detailed, however, that when paired with other data sets that include location information, it could be possible to target specific individuals, Keserű said. Location data can “expose sophisticated insights about people’s health status, through their visits to places like hospitals or abortions clinics,” Mozilla’s report said, adding that “companies like Google have been reported to keep such data even after promising to delete it.” A 2023 report by Duke University revealed that data brokers were selling sensitive data on individuals’ mental health conditions on the open market. While many brokers deleted personal identifiers, some provided names and addresses of individuals seeking mental health assistance, according to the report. In two public surveys conducted as part of the research, Keserű said, participants were outraged and felt exploited in scenarios where their health data were sold for a profit without their knowledge. “We need a new approach to our digital interactions that recognizes the fundamental rights of individuals to safeguard their bodily data, an issue that speaks directly to human autonomy and dignity,” Keserű said. “As technology continues to advance, it is critical that our laws and practices evolve to meet the unique challenges of this era.” Consumers often take part in these technologies without fully understanding the implications. Last month, Elon Musk suggested on X that users submit X-rays, PET scans, MRIs and other medical images to Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence chatbot, to seek diagnoses. The issue alarmed privacy experts, but many X users heeded Musk’s call and submitted health information to the chatbot. While X’s privacy policy says that the company will not sell user data to third parties, it does share some information with certain business partners. Gaps in existing laws have allowed the widespread sharing of biometric and other body-related data. Health information provided to hospitals, doctor’s offices and medical insurance companies is protected from disclosure under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act , known as HIPAA, which established federal standards protecting such information from release without the patient’s consent. But health data collected by many wearable devices and health and wellness apps don’t fall under HIPAA’s umbrella, said Suzanne Bernstein, counsel at Electronic Privacy Information Center. “In the U.S. because we don’t have a comprehensive federal privacy law ... it falls to the state level,” she said. But not every state has weighed in on the issue. Washington, Nevada and Connecticut all recently passed laws to provide safeguards for consumer health data. Washington, D.C., in July introduced legislation that aimed to require tech companies to adhere to strengthened privacy provisions regarding the collection, sharing, use or sale of consumer health data. In California, the California Privacy Rights Act regulates how businesses can use certain types of sensitive information, including biometric information, and requires them to offer consumers the ability to opt out of disclosure of sensitive personal information. “This information being sold or shared with data brokers and other entities hypercharge the online profiling that we’re so used to at this point, and the more sensitive the data, the more sophisticated the profiling can be,” Bernstein said. “A lot of the sharing or selling with third parties is outside the scope of what a consumer would reasonably expect.” Health information has become a prime target for hackers seeking to extort healthcare agencies and individuals after accessing sensitive patient data. Health-related cybersecurity breaches and ransom attacks increased more than 4,000% between 2009 and 2023, targeting the booming market of body-centric data, which is expected to exceed $500 billion by 2030, according to the report. “Nonconsensual data sharing is a big issue,” Keserű said. “Even if it’s biometric data or health data, a lot of the companies are just sharing that data without you knowing, and that is causing a lot of anxiety and questions.” ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.