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MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here. Every day, we are tracked hundreds or even thousands of times across the digital world. Cookies and web trackers capture every website link that we click, while code installed in mobile apps tracks every physical location that our devices—and, by extension, we—have visited. All of this is collected, packaged together with other details (compiled from public records, supermarket member programs, utility companies, and more), and used to create highly personalized profiles that are then shared or sold, often without our explicit knowledge or consent.  A consensus is growing that Americans need better privacy protections—and that the best way to deliver them would be for Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation. While the latest iteration of such a bill, the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024, gained more momentum than previously proposed laws, it became so watered down that it lost support from both Republicans and Democrats before it even came to a vote.  There have been some privacy wins in the form of limits on what data brokers—third-party companies that buy and sell consumers’ personal information for targeted advertisements, messaging, and other purposes—can do with geolocation data.  These are still small steps, though—and they are happening as increasingly pervasive and powerful technologies collect more data than ever. And at the same time, Washington is preparing for a new presidential administration that has attacked the press and other critics, promised to target immigrants for mass deportation, threatened to seek retribution against perceived enemies, and supported restrictive state abortion laws. This is not even to mention the increased collection of our biometric data, especially for facial recognition, and the normalization of its use in all kinds of ways. In this light, it’s no stretch to say our personal data has arguably never been more vulnerable, and the imperative for privacy has never felt more urgent.  So what can Americans expect for their personal data in 2025? We spoke to privacy experts and advocates about (some of) what’s on their mind regarding how our digital data might be traded or protected moving forward.  Reining in a problematic industry In early December, the Federal Trade Commission announced separate settlement agreements with the data brokers Mobilewalla and Gravy Analytics (and its subsidiary Venntel). Finding that the companies had tracked and sold geolocation data from users at sensitive locations like churches, hospitals, and military installations without explicit consent, the FTC banned the companies from selling such data except in specific circumstances. This follows something of a busy year in regulation of data brokers, including multiple FTC enforcement actions against other companies for similar use and sale of geolocation data, as well as a proposed rule from the Justice Department that would prohibit the sale of bulk data to foreign entities.  And on the same day that the FTC announced these settlements in December, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a new rule that would designate data brokers as consumer reporting agencies, which would trigger stringent reporting requirements and consumer privacy protections. The rule would prohibit the collection and sharing of people’s sensitive information, such as their salaries and Social Security numbers, without “legitimate purposes.” While the rule will still need to undergo a 90-day public comment period, and it’s unclear whether it will move forward under the Trump administration, if it’s finalized it has the power to fundamentally limit how data brokers do business. Right now, there just aren’t many limits on how these companies operate—nor, for that matter, clear information on how many data brokerages even exist. Industry watchers estimate there may be 4,000 to 5,000 data brokers around the world, many of which we’ve never heard of—and whose names constantly shift. In California alone, the state’s 2024 Data Broker Registry lists 527 such businesses that have voluntarily registered there, nearly 90 of which also self-reported that they collect geolocation data.  All this data is widely available for purchase by anyone who will pay. Marketers buy data to create highly targeted advertisements, and banks and insurance companies do the same to verify identity, prevent fraud, and conduct risk assessments. Law enforcement buys geolocation data to track people’s whereabouts without getting traditional search warrants. Foreign entities can also currently buy sensitive information on members of the military and other government officials. And on people-finder websites, basically anyone can pay for anyone else’s contact details and personal history.   Data brokers and their clients defend these transactions by saying that most of this data is anonymized—though it’s questionable whether that can truly be done in the case of geolocation data. Besides, anonymous data can be easily reidentified, especially when it’s combined with other personal information.  Digital-rights advocates have spent years sounding the alarm on this secretive industry, especially the ways in which it can harm already marginalized communities, though various types of data collection have sparked consternation across the political spectrum. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, was concerned about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bought location data to evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic lockdowns. Then a study from last year showed how easy (and cheap) it was to buy sensitive data about members of the US military; Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, called out the national security risks of data brokers in a statement to MIT Technology Review, and Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, later said he was “shocked” when he read about the practice in our story.  But it was the 2022 Supreme Court decision ending the constitutional guarantee of legal abortion that spurred much of the federal action last year. Shortly after the Dobbs ruling, President Biden issued an executive order to protect access to reproductive health care; it included instructions for the FTC to take steps preventing information about visits to doctor’s offices or abortion clinics from being sold to law enforcement agencies or state prosecutors. The new enforcers With Donald Trump taking office in January, and Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress, the fate of the CFPB’s proposed rule—and the CFPB itself—is uncertain. Republicans, the people behind Project 2025, and Elon Musk (who will lead the newly created advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency) have long been interested in seeing the bureau “deleted,” as Musk put it on X. That would take an act of Congress, making it unlikely, but there are other ways that the administration could severely curtail its powers. Trump is likely to fire the current director and install a Republican who could rescind existing CFPB rules and stop any proposed rules from moving forward.  Meanwhile, the FTC’s enforcement actions are only as good as the enforcers. FTC decisions do not set legal precedent in quite the same way that court cases do, says Ben Winters, a former Department of Justice official and the director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, a network of organizations and agencies focused on consumer protection. Instead, they “require consistent [and] additional enforcement to make the whole industry scared of not having an FTC enforcement action against them.” (It’s also worth noting that these FTC settlements are specifically focused on geolocation data, which is just one of the many types of sensitive data that we regularly give up in order to participate in the digital world.) Looking ahead, Tiffany Li, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who focuses on AI and privacy law, is worried about “a defanged FTC” that she says would be “less aggressive in taking action against companies.”  Lina Khan, the current FTC chair, has been the leader of privacy protection action in the US, notes Li, and she’ll soon be leaving. Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s recently named pick to be the next FTC chair, has come out in strong opposition to data brokers: “This type of data—records of a person’s precise physical locations—is inherently intrusive and revealing of people’s most private affairs,” he wrote in a statement on the Mobilewalla decision, indicating that he is likely to continue action against them. (Ferguson has been serving as a commissioner on the FTC since April 20214.) On the other hand, he has spoken out against using FTC actions as an alternative to privacy legislation passed by Congress. And, of course, this brings us right back around to that other major roadblock: Congress has so far failed to pass such laws—and it’s unclear if the next Congress will either.  Movement in the states Without federal legislative action, many US states are taking privacy matters into their own hands.  In 2025, eight new state privacy laws will take effect, making a total of 25 around the country. A number of other states—like Vermont and Massachusetts—are considering passing their own privacy bills next year, and such laws could, in theory, force national legislation, says Woodrow Hartzog, a technology law scholar at Boston University School of Law. “Right now, the statutes are all similar enough that the compliance cost is perhaps expensive but manageable,” he explains. But if one state passed a law that was different enough from the others, a national law could be the only way to resolve the conflict. Additionally, four states—California, Texas, Vermont, and Oregon—already have specific laws regulating data brokers, including the requirement that they register with the state.  Along with new laws, says Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy at Consumer Reports, comes the possibility that “we can put some more teeth on these laws.”  Brookman points to Texas, where some of the most aggressive enforcement action at the state level has taken place under its Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. Even before the state’s new consumer privacy bill went into effect in July, Paxton announced the creation of a special task force focused on enforcing the state’s privacy laws. He has since targeted a number of data brokers—including National Public Data, which exposed millions of sensitive customer records in a data breach in August, as well as companies that sell to them, like Sirius XM.  At the same time, though, Paxton has moved to enforce the state’s strict abortion laws in ways that threaten individual privacy. In December, he sued a New York doctor for sending abortion pills to a Texas woman through the mail. While the doctor is theoretically protected by New York’s shield laws, which provide a safeguard from out-of-state prosecution, Paxton’s aggressive action makes it even more crucial that states enshrine data privacy protections into their laws, says Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, an advocacy group. “There is an urgent need for states,” he says, “to lock down our resident’s’ data, barring companies from collecting and sharing information in ways that can be weaponized against them by out-of-state prosecutors.”  Data collection in the name of “security” While privacy has become a bipartisan issue, Republicans, in particular, are interested in “addressing data brokers in the context of national security,” such as protecting the data of military members or other government officials, says Winters. But in his view, it’s the effects on reproductive rights and immigrants that are potentially the “most dangerous” threats to privacy.  Indeed, data brokers (including Venntel, the Gravy Analytics subsidiary named in the recent FTC settlement) have sold cell-phone data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as to Customs and Border Protection. That data has then been used to track individuals for deportation proceedings—allowing the agencies to bypass local and state sanctuary laws that ban local law enforcement from sharing information for immigration enforcement.  “The more data that corporations collect, the more data that’s available to governments for surveillance,” warns Ashley Gorski, a senior attorney who works on national security and privacy at the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU is among a number of organizations that have been pushing for the passage of another federal law related to privacy: the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. It would close the so-called “data-broker loophole” that allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to buy personal information from data brokers without a search warrant. The bill would “dramatically limit the ability of the government to buy Americans’ private data,” Gorski says. It was first introduced in 2021 and passed the House in April 2024, with the support of 123 Republicans and 93 Democrats, before stalling in the Senate.  While Gorski is hopeful that the bill will move forward in the next Congress, others are less sanguine about these prospects—and alarmed about other ways that the incoming administration might “co-opt private systems for surveillance purposes,” as Hartzog puts it. So much of our personal information that is “collected for one purpose,” he says, could “easily be used by the government … to track us.”  This is especially concerning, adds Winters, given that the next administration has been “very explicit” about wanting to use every tool at its disposal to carry out policies like mass deportations and to exact revenge on perceived enemies. And one possible change, he says, is as simple as loosening the government’s procurement processes to make them more open to emerging technologies, which may have fewer privacy protections. “Right now, it’s annoying to procure anything as a federal agency,” he says, but he expects a more “fast and loose use of commercial tools.”  “That’s something we’ve [already] seen a lot,” he adds, pointing to “federal, state, and local agencies using the Clearviews of the world”—a reference to the controversial facial recognition company.  The AI wild card Underlying all of these debates on potential legislation is the fact that technology companies—especially AI companies—continue to require reams and reams of data, including personal data, to train their machine-learning models. And they’re quickly running out of it.  This is something of a wild card in any predictions about personal data. Ideally, says Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, the shortage would lead to ways for consumers to directly benefit, perhaps financially, from the value of their own data. But it’s more likely that “there will be more industry resistance against some of the proposed comprehensive federal privacy legislation bills,” she says. “Companies benefit from the status quo.”  The hunt for more and more data may also push companies to change their own privacy policies, says Whitney Merrill, a former FTC official who works on data privacy at Asana. Speaking in a personal capacity, she says that companies “have felt the squeeze in the tech recession that we’re in, with the high interest rates,” and that under those circumstances, “we’ve seen people turn around, change their policies, and try to monetize their data in an AI world”—even if it’s at the expense of user privacy. She points to the $60-million-per-year deal that Reddit struck last year to license its content to Google to help train the company’s AI.  Earlier this year, the FTC warned companies that it would be “unfair and deceptive” to “surreptitiously” change their privacy policies to allow for the use of user data to train AI. But again, whether or not officials follow up on this depends on those in charge.  So what will privacy look like in 2025?  While the recent FTC settlements and the CFPB’s proposed rule represent important steps forward in privacy protection—at least when it comes to geolocation data—Americans’ personal information still remains widely available and vulnerable.  Rebecca Williams, a senior strategist at the ACLU for privacy and data governance, argues that all of us, as individuals and communities, should take it upon ourselves to do more to protect ourselves and “resist … by opting out” of as much data collection as possible. That means checking privacy settings on accounts and apps, and using encrypted messaging services.  Cahn, meanwhile, says he’ll “be striving to protect [his] local community, working to enact safeguards to ensure that we live up to our principles and stated commitments.” One example of such safeguards is a proposed New York City ordinance that would ban the sharing of any location data originating from within the city limits. Hartzog says that kind of local activism has already been effective in pushing for city bans on facial recognition.  “Privacy rights are at risk, but they’re not gone, and it’s not helpful to take an overly pessimistic look right now,” says Li, the USF law professor. “We definitely still have privacy rights, and the more that we continue to fight for these rights, the more we’re going to be able to protect our rights.”

MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

Every day, we are tracked hundreds or even thousands of times across the digital world. Cookies and web trackers capture every website link that we click, while code installed in mobile apps tracks every physical location that our devices—and, by extension, we—have visited. All of this is collected, packaged together with other details (compiled from public records, supermarket member programs, utility companies, and more), and used to create highly personalized profiles that are then shared or sold, often without our explicit knowledge or consent. 

A consensus is growing that Americans need better privacy protections—and that the best way to deliver them would be for Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation. While the latest iteration of such a bill, the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024, gained more momentum than previously proposed laws, it became so watered down that it lost support from both Republicans and Democrats before it even came to a vote. 

There have been some privacy wins in the form of limits on what data brokers—third-party companies that buy and sell consumers’ personal information for targeted advertisements, messaging, and other purposes—can do with geolocation data. 

These are still small steps, though—and they are happening as increasingly pervasive and powerful technologies collect more data than ever. And at the same time, Washington is preparing for a new presidential administration that has attacked the press and other critics, promised to target immigrants for mass deportation, threatened to seek retribution against perceived enemies, and supported restrictive state abortion laws. This is not even to mention the increased collection of our biometric data, especially for facial recognition, and the normalization of its use in all kinds of ways. In this light, it’s no stretch to say our personal data has arguably never been more vulnerable, and the imperative for privacy has never felt more urgent. 

So what can Americans expect for their personal data in 2025? We spoke to privacy experts and advocates about (some of) what’s on their mind regarding how our digital data might be traded or protected moving forward. 

Reining in a problematic industry

In early December, the Federal Trade Commission announced separate settlement agreements with the data brokers Mobilewalla and Gravy Analytics (and its subsidiary Venntel). Finding that the companies had tracked and sold geolocation data from users at sensitive locations like churches, hospitals, and military installations without explicit consent, the FTC banned the companies from selling such data except in specific circumstances. This follows something of a busy year in regulation of data brokers, including multiple FTC enforcement actions against other companies for similar use and sale of geolocation data, as well as a proposed rule from the Justice Department that would prohibit the sale of bulk data to foreign entities. 

And on the same day that the FTC announced these settlements in December, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a new rule that would designate data brokers as consumer reporting agencies, which would trigger stringent reporting requirements and consumer privacy protections. The rule would prohibit the collection and sharing of people’s sensitive information, such as their salaries and Social Security numbers, without “legitimate purposes.” While the rule will still need to undergo a 90-day public comment period, and it’s unclear whether it will move forward under the Trump administration, if it’s finalized it has the power to fundamentally limit how data brokers do business.

Right now, there just aren’t many limits on how these companies operate—nor, for that matter, clear information on how many data brokerages even exist. Industry watchers estimate there may be 4,000 to 5,000 data brokers around the world, many of which we’ve never heard of—and whose names constantly shift. In California alone, the state’s 2024 Data Broker Registry lists 527 such businesses that have voluntarily registered there, nearly 90 of which also self-reported that they collect geolocation data. 

All this data is widely available for purchase by anyone who will pay. Marketers buy data to create highly targeted advertisements, and banks and insurance companies do the same to verify identity, prevent fraud, and conduct risk assessments. Law enforcement buys geolocation data to track people’s whereabouts without getting traditional search warrants. Foreign entities can also currently buy sensitive information on members of the military and other government officials. And on people-finder websites, basically anyone can pay for anyone else’s contact details and personal history.  

Data brokers and their clients defend these transactions by saying that most of this data is anonymized—though it’s questionable whether that can truly be done in the case of geolocation data. Besides, anonymous data can be easily reidentified, especially when it’s combined with other personal information. 

Digital-rights advocates have spent years sounding the alarm on this secretive industry, especially the ways in which it can harm already marginalized communities, though various types of data collection have sparked consternation across the political spectrum. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, was concerned about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bought location data to evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic lockdowns. Then a study from last year showed how easy (and cheap) it was to buy sensitive data about members of the US military; Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, called out the national security risks of data brokers in a statement to MIT Technology Review, and Senator John Cornyn, a Republican, later said he was “shocked” when he read about the practice in our story. 

But it was the 2022 Supreme Court decision ending the constitutional guarantee of legal abortion that spurred much of the federal action last year. Shortly after the Dobbs ruling, President Biden issued an executive order to protect access to reproductive health care; it included instructions for the FTC to take steps preventing information about visits to doctor’s offices or abortion clinics from being sold to law enforcement agencies or state prosecutors.

The new enforcers

With Donald Trump taking office in January, and Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress, the fate of the CFPB’s proposed rule—and the CFPB itself—is uncertain. Republicans, the people behind Project 2025, and Elon Musk (who will lead the newly created advisory group known as the Department of Government Efficiency) have long been interested in seeing the bureau “deleted,” as Musk put it on X. That would take an act of Congress, making it unlikely, but there are other ways that the administration could severely curtail its powers. Trump is likely to fire the current director and install a Republican who could rescind existing CFPB rules and stop any proposed rules from moving forward. 

Meanwhile, the FTC’s enforcement actions are only as good as the enforcers. FTC decisions do not set legal precedent in quite the same way that court cases do, says Ben Winters, a former Department of Justice official and the director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, a network of organizations and agencies focused on consumer protection. Instead, they “require consistent [and] additional enforcement to make the whole industry scared of not having an FTC enforcement action against them.” (It’s also worth noting that these FTC settlements are specifically focused on geolocation data, which is just one of the many types of sensitive data that we regularly give up in order to participate in the digital world.)

Looking ahead, Tiffany Li, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who focuses on AI and privacy law, is worried about “a defanged FTC” that she says would be “less aggressive in taking action against companies.” 

Lina Khan, the current FTC chair, has been the leader of privacy protection action in the US, notes Li, and she’ll soon be leaving. Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s recently named pick to be the next FTC chair, has come out in strong opposition to data brokers: “This type of data—records of a person’s precise physical locations—is inherently intrusive and revealing of people’s most private affairs,” he wrote in a statement on the Mobilewalla decision, indicating that he is likely to continue action against them. (Ferguson has been serving as a commissioner on the FTC since April 20214.) On the other hand, he has spoken out against using FTC actions as an alternative to privacy legislation passed by Congress. And, of course, this brings us right back around to that other major roadblock: Congress has so far failed to pass such laws—and it’s unclear if the next Congress will either. 

Movement in the states

Without federal legislative action, many US states are taking privacy matters into their own hands. 

In 2025, eight new state privacy laws will take effect, making a total of 25 around the country. A number of other states—like Vermont and Massachusetts—are considering passing their own privacy bills next year, and such laws could, in theory, force national legislation, says Woodrow Hartzog, a technology law scholar at Boston University School of Law. “Right now, the statutes are all similar enough that the compliance cost is perhaps expensive but manageable,” he explains. But if one state passed a law that was different enough from the others, a national law could be the only way to resolve the conflict. Additionally, four states—California, Texas, Vermont, and Oregon—already have specific laws regulating data brokers, including the requirement that they register with the state. 

Along with new laws, says Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy at Consumer Reports, comes the possibility that “we can put some more teeth on these laws.” 

Brookman points to Texas, where some of the most aggressive enforcement action at the state level has taken place under its Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. Even before the state’s new consumer privacy bill went into effect in July, Paxton announced the creation of a special task force focused on enforcing the state’s privacy laws. He has since targeted a number of data brokers—including National Public Data, which exposed millions of sensitive customer records in a data breach in August, as well as companies that sell to them, like Sirius XM. 

At the same time, though, Paxton has moved to enforce the state’s strict abortion laws in ways that threaten individual privacy. In December, he sued a New York doctor for sending abortion pills to a Texas woman through the mail. While the doctor is theoretically protected by New York’s shield laws, which provide a safeguard from out-of-state prosecution, Paxton’s aggressive action makes it even more crucial that states enshrine data privacy protections into their laws, says Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, an advocacy group. “There is an urgent need for states,” he says, “to lock down our resident’s’ data, barring companies from collecting and sharing information in ways that can be weaponized against them by out-of-state prosecutors.” 

Data collection in the name of “security”

While privacy has become a bipartisan issue, Republicans, in particular, are interested in “addressing data brokers in the context of national security,” such as protecting the data of military members or other government officials, says Winters. But in his view, it’s the effects on reproductive rights and immigrants that are potentially the “most dangerous” threats to privacy. 

Indeed, data brokers (including Venntel, the Gravy Analytics subsidiary named in the recent FTC settlement) have sold cell-phone data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as to Customs and Border Protection. That data has then been used to track individuals for deportation proceedings—allowing the agencies to bypass local and state sanctuary laws that ban local law enforcement from sharing information for immigration enforcement. 

“The more data that corporations collect, the more data that’s available to governments for surveillance,” warns Ashley Gorski, a senior attorney who works on national security and privacy at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU is among a number of organizations that have been pushing for the passage of another federal law related to privacy: the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. It would close the so-called “data-broker loophole” that allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies to buy personal information from data brokers without a search warrant. The bill would “dramatically limit the ability of the government to buy Americans’ private data,” Gorski says. It was first introduced in 2021 and passed the House in April 2024, with the support of 123 Republicans and 93 Democrats, before stalling in the Senate. 

While Gorski is hopeful that the bill will move forward in the next Congress, others are less sanguine about these prospects—and alarmed about other ways that the incoming administration might “co-opt private systems for surveillance purposes,” as Hartzog puts it. So much of our personal information that is “collected for one purpose,” he says, could “easily be used by the government … to track us.” 

This is especially concerning, adds Winters, given that the next administration has been “very explicit” about wanting to use every tool at its disposal to carry out policies like mass deportations and to exact revenge on perceived enemies. And one possible change, he says, is as simple as loosening the government’s procurement processes to make them more open to emerging technologies, which may have fewer privacy protections. “Right now, it’s annoying to procure anything as a federal agency,” he says, but he expects a more “fast and loose use of commercial tools.” 

“That’s something we’ve [already] seen a lot,” he adds, pointing to “federal, state, and local agencies using the Clearviews of the world”—a reference to the controversial facial recognition company. 

The AI wild card

Underlying all of these debates on potential legislation is the fact that technology companies—especially AI companies—continue to require reams and reams of data, including personal data, to train their machine-learning models. And they’re quickly running out of it. 

This is something of a wild card in any predictions about personal data. Ideally, says Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, the shortage would lead to ways for consumers to directly benefit, perhaps financially, from the value of their own data. But it’s more likely that “there will be more industry resistance against some of the proposed comprehensive federal privacy legislation bills,” she says. “Companies benefit from the status quo.” 

The hunt for more and more data may also push companies to change their own privacy policies, says Whitney Merrill, a former FTC official who works on data privacy at Asana. Speaking in a personal capacity, she says that companies “have felt the squeeze in the tech recession that we’re in, with the high interest rates,” and that under those circumstances, “we’ve seen people turn around, change their policies, and try to monetize their data in an AI world”—even if it’s at the expense of user privacy. She points to the $60-million-per-year deal that Reddit struck last year to license its content to Google to help train the company’s AI. 

Earlier this year, the FTC warned companies that it would be “unfair and deceptive” to “surreptitiously” change their privacy policies to allow for the use of user data to train AI. But again, whether or not officials follow up on this depends on those in charge. 

So what will privacy look like in 2025? 

While the recent FTC settlements and the CFPB’s proposed rule represent important steps forward in privacy protection—at least when it comes to geolocation data—Americans’ personal information still remains widely available and vulnerable. 

Rebecca Williams, a senior strategist at the ACLU for privacy and data governance, argues that all of us, as individuals and communities, should take it upon ourselves to do more to protect ourselves and “resist … by opting out” of as much data collection as possible. That means checking privacy settings on accounts and apps, and using encrypted messaging services. 

Cahn, meanwhile, says he’ll “be striving to protect [his] local community, working to enact safeguards to ensure that we live up to our principles and stated commitments.” One example of such safeguards is a proposed New York City ordinance that would ban the sharing of any location data originating from within the city limits. Hartzog says that kind of local activism has already been effective in pushing for city bans on facial recognition. 

“Privacy rights are at risk, but they’re not gone, and it’s not helpful to take an overly pessimistic look right now,” says Li, the USF law professor. “We definitely still have privacy rights, and the more that we continue to fight for these rights, the more we’re going to be able to protect our rights.”

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Solaris Expands Board

Solaris Energy Infrastructure Inc. has expanded its Board of Directors to ten members with the recent addition of Max Yzaguirre as an independent member. Solaris said that Yzaguirre’s career spans more than 35 years, encompassing leadership roles in domestic and international business, government, and law, with expertise across diverse sectors such as electricity, oil and gas, banking, real estate, telecommunications, and private equity. He served on the Boards of Directors of publicly listed and privately-held companies, as well as non-profit organizations, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of WaFD Bank, Altria Group, and Aris Water Solutions, the company said. He also served as Chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas from 2001 to 2002, a period marked by the state’s transition from a regulated to a competitive retail electricity market.  During his time as PUC Chairman, Yzaguirre also sat on the Board of Directors of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Solaris noted. “We are pleased to welcome Max to our Board and look forward to the value he will bring Solaris”, Bill Zartler, Solaris Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said. “His experience developing energy and power-related projects as well as his former roles as Chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission and an ERCOT Board Member will provide unique insight to Solaris as we continue to grow and develop our Power Solutions business”. “Max is an accomplished executive with extensive leadership, strategic, operational, financial, and governance experience. The Board welcomes his appointment and believes his expertise and invaluable perspective will help Solaris continue to drive value for its shareholders”, Laurie H. Argo, Chairman of the Nominating and Governance Committee of Solaris’ Board, stated. To contact the author, email [email protected] WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views

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ExxonMobil Contracts Baker Hughes for Stabroek Projects in Guyana

Baker Hughes Co. said it has bagged a “significant” award to supply production chemicals for the fifth and sixth hydrocarbon production projects in the Exxon Mobil Corp.-operated Stabroek block in Guyanese waters. The contract will serve two floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs) being built for the Uaru and Whiptail greenfield developments, approved by the Stabroek consortium 2023 and 2024 respectively. “The multi-year contract includes all topsides, subsea, water injection and utility chemicals for the Errea Wittu and Jaguar floating production storage and offloading vessels, which are currently under development, and are targeted to begin production in 2026 and 2027 respectively”, Baker Hughes said in a press release. Erea Wittu, for Uaru, is being constructed by MODEC Inc. SBM Offshore, which delivered the three FPSOs currently serving Stabroek, is building Jaguar for Whiptail. “Baker Hughes has extensive experience in Guyana and has established local supply chains to create a reliable and efficient source of chemicals to address the unique needs of these developments”, the Houston, Texas-based energy tech company added. Amerino Gatti, executive vice president for oilfield services and equipment at Baker Hughes, commented, “Our experience operating across the country’s energy supply chain and unmatched expertise in oilfield and industrial chemicals make Baker Hughes uniquely suited to support complex FPSO operations such as these”. Baker Hughes did not disclose the contract value. Uaru and Whiptail, each with an investment of $12.7 billion, will each have a production capacity of 250,000 barrels per day (bpd). The projects will raise production in Stabroek, Guyana’s only producing block, to 1.3 million bpd, according to the owners. Stabroek’s fifth and sixth developments – after Liza Phase 1, Liza Phase 2, Payara and Yellowtail – include up to 20 drill centers and 92 production and injection wells, according to ExxonMobil’s announcements of the projects’ final investment decisions. The fourth, Yellowtail, is

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Atlas Energy Solutions Raises $254 Million from Public Offering

Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. has closed an underwritten public offering of 11.5 million common shares with about $254.1 million in net proceeds. The underwriters are allowed to buy up to 1.725 million additional common shares in 30 days. The offering has a price of $23 per share. Atlas executive chair Ben M Brigham increased his shareholding by buying about 200,000 shares in the offering, a regulatory filing showed. An earlier press release by Austin, Texas-based Atlas announcing the pricing of the offering listed Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Piper Sandler & Co. as lead book-running managers. Barclays Capital Inc., BofA Securities Inc. and Johnson Rice & Company LLC were named as book-running managers. Listed as co-managers were Capital One Securities Inc., Drexel Hamilton LLC, PEP Advisory LLC, Perella Weinberg Partners LP, Raymond James & Associates Inc., Stephens Inc. and The Benchmark Company LLC. Atlas intends to use the proceeds to pay down indebtedness and help fund the cash portion of its acquisition of Moser Engine Service Inc. On January 27 Atlas announced a deal to purchase 100 percent of Casper, Wyoming-based Moser’s outstanding capital stock for $220 million. “The combination of Atlas’s completion platform and Moser’s distributed power platform creates an innovative, diversified energy solutions provider with a leading portfolio of proppant, logistics (including the Dune Express) and distributed power solutions”, a joint statement said. Moser’s “dynamic fleet of natural gas-powered assets (~212MWs) expands Atlas’s current operations into production and distributed power end markets supported by strong macro tailwinds expected to reduce through-cycle volatility associated with completions operations”, the companies added. The merger “increases Atlas’s customer reach with a vital power service offering in Atlas’s core geography, the Permian Basin, while providing geographic diversity with operating locations in key oil and gas basins across the central United States”, the statement said. Atlas expects to

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Rigzone President Talks Hiring Trends in Michael Berry Interview

In a radio interview with Michael Berry on The Michael Berry Show, which aired recently, Rigzone President Chad Norville highlighted some of the latest U.S. oil and gas hiring trends. “What we’re hearing from the medium to larger sized firms is that they’re expecting a relatively flat 2025 relative to 2024 … there’s a lot of optimism in the marketplace, but there are headwinds,” Norville told Berry in the interview. “The discussions we’re having … [are] kind of a ‘wait and see’ approach but … cautiously optimistic. That’s what we’re hearing from the larger producers,” he added. “[From] the medium and smallers, we’re hearing more optimism … more near-term optimism, on hiring, fast-tracking projects … getting permits, doing different things of that nature,” he continued. Looking at the type of positions hiring now, Norville, who highlighted in the interview that Rigzone conducts job fairs “in all the key [U.S.] oil and gas markets” said, “what we’re seeing is a lot of tech roles, field operations types [of] roles”. “Those are the things that I’ve been seeing and I’m still seeing with the job fairs that we’re putting together now, and who we’re talking to,” he added. “You can go on Rigzone and find a petroleum engineer, a mechanical, electrical engineer, geophysical roles, those are always there, but we see large changes as the cycles change,” Norville continued. “We saw things during the pandemic, for instance, it went to a lot of white-collar office roles. Now we’re seeing a lot of tech roles. So, field service technicians, I&E technicians, that’s instrumentation and electrical, mechanics. Those are the types of roles right now we’re seeing,” he noted. “A lot of instrumentation, a lot of electrical, a lot of valve technicians. Those types of field roles are the things that we’re really seeing

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Canada’s Scovan Acquires Carbon Capture Assets of Delta CleanTech

Canada’s Scovan Group Inc. is delving into the carbon capture business with the acquisition of the carbon capture and solvent reclamation assets and employees of Delta CleanTech Inc. Scovan Group is the parent company of Scovan Inc., a private Western Canadian engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction management (EPFC) company. “This strategic acquisition represents a significant step forward in Scovan’s commitment to driving innovation and delivering sustainable engineering solutions,” the company said in a news release. The acquisition will result in a new entity that will partner with Scovan while operating as a separate organization. The entity, focused on carbon capture, will maintain continuity with key technical personnel, including Delta CleanTech’s Jeff Allison who will assume the position of VP for Operations. Scovan’s Kelly Mantei will become the organization’s COO, the company stated. According to a statement from Delta CleanTech, Scovan will acquire certain assets related to Delta’s liquids, purification, carbon capture, and OExperts divisions for an aggregate purchase price of up to an aggregate purchase price of $0.73 million (CAD 1.05 million) with project royalties payable of up to $10.69 million (CAD 15.3 million) over a maximum seven-year term. “This deal signifies a new chapter for carbon capture advancement in Western Canada. Delta CleanTech’s products and team are the perfect partner to Scovan’s EPFC services,” Mantei said. “This partnership enables us to leverage complementary strengths, innovate together, and provide unparalleled value to our clients”. “Having the opportunity to continue Delta’s legacy of carbon capture excellence in partnership with Scovan is truly exciting,” Allison said in the release. “This allows us to build on our expertise, scale up our impact, and support clients in achieving their sustainability goals”. “The strategic merger of Delta’s CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions reduction and related purification division with Scovan, will provide the engineering and fabrication capabilities

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Linux containers in 2025 and beyond

The upcoming years will also bring about an increase in the use of standard container practices, such as the Open Container Initiative (OCI) standard, container registries, signing, testing, and GitOps workflows used for application development to build Linux systems. We’re also likely see a significant rise in the use of bootable containers, which are self-contained images that can boot directly into an operating system or application environment. Cloud platforms are often the primary platform for AI experimentation and container development because of their scalability and flexibility along the integration of both AI and ML services. They’re giving birth to many significant changes in the way we process data. With data centers worldwide, cloud platforms also ensure low-latency access and regional compliance for AI applications. As we move ahead, development teams will be able to collaborate more easily through shared development environments and efficient data storage.

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Let’s Go Build Some Data Centers: PowerHouse Drives Hyperscale and AI Infrastructure Across North America

PowerHouse Data Centers, a leading developer and builder of next-generation hyperscale data centers and a division of American Real Estate Partners (AREP), is making significant strides in expanding its footprint across North America, initiating several key projects and partnerships as 2025 begins.  The new developments underscore the company’s commitment to advancing digital infrastructure to meet the growing demands of hyperscale and AI-driven applications. Let’s take a closer look at some of PowerHouse Data Centers’ most recent announcements. Quantum Connect: Bridging the AI Infrastructure Gap in Ashburn On January 17, PowerHouse Data Centers announced a collaboration with Quantum Connect to develop Ashburn’s first fiber hub specifically designed for AI and high-density workloads. This facility is set to provide 20 MW of critical power, with initial availability slated for late 2026.  Strategically located in Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, Quantum Connect aims to offer scalable, high-density colocation solutions, featuring rack densities of up to 30kW to support modern workloads such as AI inference, edge caching, and regional compute integration. Quantum Connect said it currently has 1-3 MW private suites available for businesses seeking high-performance infrastructure that bridges the gap between retail colocation and hyperscale facilities. “Quantum Connect redefines what Ashburn’s data center market can deliver for businesses caught in the middle—those too large for retail colocation yet underserved by hyperscale environments,” said Matt Monaco, Senior Vice President at PowerHouse Data Centers. “We’re providing high-performance solutions for tenants with demanding needs but without hyperscale budgets.” Anchored by 130 miles of private conduit and 2,500 fiber pathways, Quantum Connect’s infrastructure offers tenants direct, short-hop connections to adjacent facilities and carrier networks.  With 14 campus entrances and secure, concrete-encased duct banks, the partners said the new facility minimizes downtime risks and reduces operational costs by eliminating the need for new optics or extended fiber runs.

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Blue Owl Swoops In As Major Backer of New, High-Profile, Sustainable U.S. Data Center Construction

With the global demand for data centers continuing to surge ahead, fueled by the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and digital services, it is unsurprising that we are seeing aggressive investment strategies, beyond those of the existing hyperscalers. One of the dynamic players in this market is Blue Owl Capital, a leading asset management firm that has made significant strides in the data center sector. Back in October 2024 we reported on its acquisition of IPI Partners, a digital infrastructure fund manager, for approximately $1 billion. This acquisition added over $11 billion to the assets Blue Owl manages and focused specifically on digital infrastructure initiatives. This acquisition was completed as of January 5, 2025 and IPI’s Managing Partner, Matt A’Hearn has been appointed Head of Blue Owl’s digital infrastructure strategy. A Key Player In Digital Infrastructure and Data Centers With multi-billion-dollar joint ventures and financing initiatives, Blue Owl is positioning itself as a key player in the digital infrastructure space. The company investments in data centers, the implications of its strategic moves, and the broader impact on the AI and digital economy highlights the importance of investment in the data center to the economy overall. With the rapid growth of the data center industry, it is unsurprising that aggressive investment fund management is seeing it as an opportunity. Analysts continue to emphasize that the global data center market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.2% from 2023 to 2030, reaching $517.17 billion by the end of the decade. In this rapidly evolving landscape, Blue Owl Capital has emerged as a significant contributor. The firm’s investments in data centers are not just about capitalizing on current trends but also about shaping the future of digital infrastructure. Spreading the Wealth In August 2024, Blue Owl

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Global Data Center Operator Telehouse Launches Liquid Cooling Lab in the UK to Meet Ongoing AI and HPC Demand

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Flexential Partners with Lonestar to Support First Lunar Data Center

Flexential, a leading provider of secure and flexible data center solutions, this month announced that it has joined forces with Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. to support the upcoming launch of Freedom, Lonestar’s second lunar data center. Scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket via Intuitive Machines, this mission is a critical step toward establishing a permanent data center on the Moon. Ground-Based Support for Lunar Data Storage Flexential’s Tampa data center will serve as the mission control platform for Lonestar’s lunar operations, providing colocation, interconnection, and professional services. The facility was chosen for its proximity to Florida’s Space Coast launch operations and its ability to deliver low-latency connectivity for critical functions. Flexential operates two data centers in Tampa and four in Florida as part of its FlexAnywhere® Platform, comprising more than 40 facilities across the U.S. “Flexential’s partnership with Lonestar represents our commitment to advancing data center capabilities beyond conventional boundaries,” said Jason Carolan, Chief Innovation Officer at Flexential. “By supporting Lonestar’s space-based data center initiative, we are helping to create new possibilities for data storage and disaster recovery. This project demonstrates how innovative data center expertise can help organizations prepare for a resilient future with off-world storage solutions.” A New Era of Space-Based Resiliency The growing demand for data center capacity, with U.S. power consumption expected to double from 17 GW in 2022 to 35 GW by 2030 (according to McKinsey & Company), is driving interest in space-based solutions. Storing data off-planet reduces reliance on terrestrial resources while enhancing security against natural disasters, warfare, and cyber threats. The Freedom data center will provide resiliency, disaster recovery, and edge processing services for government and enterprise customers requiring the highest levels of data protection. The solar-powered data center leverages Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) edge

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Why DeepSeek Is Great for AI and HPC and Maybe No Big Deal for Data Centers

In the rapid and ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), the emergence of DeepSeek’s R1 model has sent ripples across industries. DeepSeek has been the data center industry’s topic of the week, for sure. The Chinese AI app surged to the top of US app store leaderboards last weekend, sparking a global selloff in technology shares Monday morning.  But while some analysts predict a transformative impact within the industry, a closer examination suggests that, for data centers at large, the furor over DeepSeek might ultimately be much ado about nothing. DeepSeek’s Breakthrough in AI and HPC DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, this month unveiled its R1 model, claiming performance on par with, or even surpassing, leading models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude-3.5-Sonnet. Remarkably, DeepSeek developed this model at a fraction of the cost typically associated with such advancements, utilizing a cluster of 256 server nodes equipped with 2,048 GPUs. This efficiency has been attributed to innovative techniques and optimized resource utilization. AI researchers have been abuzz about the performance of the DeepSeek chatbot that produces results similar to ChatGPT, but is based on open-source models and reportedly trained on older GPU chips. Some researchers are skeptical of claims about DeepSeek’s development costs and means, but its performance appears to challenge common assumptions about the computing cost of developing AI applications. This efficiency has been attributed to innovative techniques and optimized resource utilization.  Market Reactions and Data Center Implications The announcement of DeepSeek’s R1 model led to significant market reactions, with notable declines in tech stocks, including a substantial drop in Nvidia’s valuation. This downturn was driven by concerns that more efficient AI models could reduce the demand for high-end hardware and, by extension, the expansive data centers that house them. For now, investors are re-assessing the

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Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

And Microsoft isn’t the only one that is ramping up its investments into AI-enabled data centers. Rival cloud service providers are all investing in either upgrading or opening new data centers to capture a larger chunk of business from developers and users of large language models (LLMs).  In a report published in October 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that demand for generative AI would push Microsoft, AWS, Google, Oracle, Meta, and Apple would between them devote $200 billion to capex in 2025, up from $110 billion in 2023. Microsoft is one of the biggest spenders, followed closely by Google and AWS, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Its estimate of Microsoft’s capital spending on AI, at $62.4 billion for calendar 2025, is lower than Smith’s claim that the company will invest $80 billion in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025. Both figures, though, are way higher than Microsoft’s 2020 capital expenditure of “just” $17.6 billion. The majority of the increased spending is tied to cloud services and the expansion of AI infrastructure needed to provide compute capacity for OpenAI workloads. Separately, last October Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said his company planned total capex spend of $75 billion in 2024 and even more in 2025, with much of it going to AWS, its cloud computing division.

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John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

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2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

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OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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