In essence, the decision establishes that having your biometric data used without your knowledge or consent impacts you adversely, period, and that companies who do so are liable for damages.

Companies that improperly gather people’s data can be sued for damages even without proof of concrete injuries.

The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.

It originated from a location data company, one of dozens quietly collecting precise movements using software slipped onto mobile phone apps.

Today, it’s perfectly legal to collect and sell all this information. In the United States, as in most of the world, no federal law limits what has become a vast and lucrative trade in human tracking.

There are signals that certain civil liberties are in peril. In the midst of the pandemic, legislatures in Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia passed laws that will chill speech opposed to fossil fuel infrastructure development

Some governments have also turned to potentially intrusive technologies to track the spread of the new coronavirus.

Americans are about evenly divided on whether they think it’s OK for the government to use cellphones to track people who have contracted COVID-19, according to the Pew Research survey.