Congress wants to ban AI firms from selling your health data

senators elizabeth warren, ron wyden, and bernie sanders, alongside representative mary gay scanlon, are updating the health and location data protection act to specifically cover data generated by interactions with ai chatbots. the bill prohibits companies and data brokers from selling or sharing sensitive health and location information, including inputs users provide to ai models for medical analysis. it directs the federal trade commission to finalize rules within 180 days and appropriates $1 billion for enforcement over ten years, empowering the ftc and state attorneys to sue violators. the legislation responds to the rapid expansion of ai healthcare tools from xai, openai, and anthropic, seeking to close regulatory gaps that currently leave user privacy dependent solely on corporate policies.