SEATTLE — A bill aimed at strengthening health data privacy is now in effect in Washington.
People can now access, delete and withdraw consent when it comes to collecting and selling personal data. With the creation of artificial intelligence, women in the industry are warning more protections need to be in place.
As big as the tech industry is in western Washington, it's still difficult to break into for women.
"Your voice is not heard, you're not represented in the broader conversation for policy making and opportunities and access aren't easily accessible for women of color," said Chaitra Vedullapalli who owns her own tech company and is the president of Women in Cloud.
"We are a global organization, we serve 100,000 women across the world in 26 countries," said Vedullapalli.
Vedullapalli said the new My Health, My Data Act adds protections for online medical data but with AI, a lack of privacy rights is already impacting women in tech.
"Our identity, our consent, our security of the data is getting impacted," Vedullapalli said.
She said that comes in the form of using your identity for monetary gains, hacking into company databases and employment discrimination.
"You can basically tell the algorithm based on the resume you're getting, based on the type of the name, you can eliminate those resumes," said Vedullapalli.
"Actual makers of AI are coming to Congress and saying we need to have these regulations put in place," said Washington State Senator Patty Kuderer.
Kuderer said Congress is working to create regulations but states like Washington are now looking to create their own legislation. Kuderer said we learned the hard way through the lack of regulations for privacy rights on social media, "If we don't take a lesson from that, we are going to be in deeper trouble this time around."
According to a Pew Research study, 81% of Americans believe they have no control over who collects their data.
"If this amount of population is concerned, we really need to get engaged and get involved," said Vedullapalli.