Report Also Details That Following Hassan’s Pressure, Registered Data Brokers Took Steps to Improve Data Privacy Options

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee, issued a report today on the results of her investigation into challenges with data collection opt-out options at registered data brokers and the cost to Americans from data broker breaches. Data brokers typically collect and sell the personal information of individuals, and if this information ends up in the hands of bad actors – which can happen either through active sales or data breaches – scammers can then use details like Social Security numbers, home addresses, or banking information to develop customized and convincing scams. As detailed in the report, the Committee found that recent data broker breaches cost U.S. consumers more than $20 billion.

In August 2025, Ranking Member Hassan issued requests to five companies registered as data brokers – Comscore, Findem, IQVIA Digital (IQVIA), Telesign, and 6sense Insights (6sense) – following reports that they had taken steps to hide their opt-out pages, which in turn makes it more difficult for people to request that the companies delete or not sell their data. Key results and findings from the investigation include:

• Following Ranking Member Hassan’s requests, four of the companies took actions to make their opt-out options more accessible to consumers and other parties, including by removing “no index” code that had blocked opt-out pages from search engine results and by adding opt-out links.
  
  
• Findem did not respond to the requests and has not removed the “no index” code from its opt-out page – raising serious concerns about its responsiveness to opt-out requests and commitment to data privacy.
  
  
• New Committee calculations estimate that identity theft resulting from just four large data broker breaches in recent years cost U.S. consumers more than $20 billion.

“As international criminal syndicates increasingly use scams to target Americans, data brokers shouldn’t make it harder for people to protect themselves,” said Ranking Member Hassan. “This report shows the scope of the threat that people face from data broker breaches and underscores the importance of protecting Americans’ private data. It is encouraging that after we launched our investigation, many companies took steps to improve opt-out options for Americans, which in turn can help more consumers keep their information out of the wrong hands.”

You can read the full report here. 

Ranking Member Hassan’s investigation is part of her ongoing comprehensive effort to combat scams, which accounted for nearly half a trillion dollars in losses last year and now surpass the drug trade as an illicit industry. Senator Hassan has opened investigations into the roles that satellite internet providers, online dating platforms, AI companies, and federal agencies have in preventing scams. She also alerted consumers to scam spikes around Black Friday, winter holidays, and the Super Bowl.

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