Washington, DC – Justin Brookman, director of technology policy at Consumer Reports, will testify Tuesday, November 19 at 2:30 pm ET at a hearing held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security. The hearing is entitled “Protecting Consumers from Artificial Intelligence Enabled Fraud and Scams.”
“Artificial intelligence is here and a part of our everyday lives. The technology has great potential to benefit society, but like with any tool, there are risks,” said Brookman. “Bad actors are exploiting AI to scam and defraud unsuspecting individuals of their personal information and money. Tool providers and online platforms aren’t doing enough to stop fraudulent behavior. Our current protections are inadequate to keep up with this rapidly advancing technology.”
In its testimony, CR will be calling for:
- Stronger enforcement bodies – Congress should grant the Federal Trade Commission additional resources to hire attorneys and technologists, and expand legal powers in order to allow the agency to keep pace with the threats that plague the modern economy.
- Clearer platform accountability rules – Companies that offer AI tools and online platforms need clearer responsibility about how they respond to bad actors’ use of those services. This could potentially be done using existing law.
- Transparency obligations – As a general matter, consumers deserve to know whether the content they’re interacting with is real or AI-generated. Content creators and companies should be labeling AI-generated content and chatbots as such.
- Stronger privacy and security laws – Policymakers should enact stronger privacy rules based on the principle of data minimization — meaning companies should only be collecting, processing, sharing, and retaining data as is reasonably necessary to deliver the goods or services requested by consumers.
- Citizen education and better tools – Institutions need to find ways to encourage consumers to adopt more sophisticated protections, including protections designed to protect consumers from AI-generated deepfake scams. At the same time, researchers in industry, academia, civil society, and government should continue developing new tools to help consumers identify inauthentic content.
CR recently published an AI policy guide that outlines our key positions and recommendations for policymakers and a survey that found a majority of Americans are uncomfortable with AI in employment, housing, and healthcare decisions.
Justin Brookman’s full testimony is available here. For more information, and to view the hearing, you can visit the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation website here.
Contact: cyrus.rassool@consumer.org