The United States of America recently turned 250 years old. What a spectacle! The fireworks were amazing, and millions of proud people celebrated across the nation — even around the world. France lit up the Eiffel Tower; Japan had fireworks. French fighter jets flew above New York City with trails of red, white, and blue — our first major ally streaking our shared colors through the sky. Meanwhile, shameful white nationalists paraded through our nation’s capital. This has always been a country of paradoxes.
Technology
Your health data is being sold without your consent
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Your health information might feel private and secure with your doctor, but the reality is far more complicated. Data brokers collect a wide range of sensitive health data, from diagnoses and prescription details to personal identifiers, and sell this data to marketers, insurers, and other third parties. These buyers use the information to target ads, adjust insurance premiums, or even for purposes you might not expect. Understanding who holds your health data and how it’s used and shared is crucial to protecting your privacy.
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A woman viewing her health app. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Massive health data breaches are fueling the data broker industry
You might think your health data is safe with your doctor. But what if I told you total strangers might know when you last Googled “early signs of dementia” or filled a prescription for anxiety meds, and they’re selling that to whoever is willing to pay for it? A recent data breach at Yale New Haven Health, Connecticut’s largest healthcare system, exposed sensitive information on 5.5 million people. And it’s not an isolated incident; new research shows that since 2020, approximately 94.5 million Americans may have had their Social Security numbers stolen during health data breaches. The scary part is that data brokers collect and sell the names, addresses, and prescribed medications of patients diagnosed with mental health disorders to marketers on a large scale. How much is your medical information worth? Data brokers can sell it for as little as $0.06 per record. Let’s break down what these data brokers know, who they’re selling it to, and why it matters for you, your family, and especially vulnerable groups like seniors.
Illustration of a medical record. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
CUSTOM DATA REMOVAL: WHY IT MATTERS FOR PERSONAL INFO ONLINE
What types of health information are data brokers selling?
There’s a difference between protected health information, the kind your doctor and health insurer have to keep private, thanks to HIPAA, and the health-adjacent data you leave behind everywhere else.
Data brokers typically don’t have access to your official medical records. But they’re not regulated under HIPAA or any other laws, so they can legally collect:
- Fitness app data: Step counts, heart rate, calories burned.
- Symptom-related Google searches: Even “early signs of dementia” or “knee pain at night.”
- Pharmacy purchases: Both prescriptions and over-the-counter medications.
- Wellness quizzes and online forms: Those “What’s your biological age?” surveys aren’t just for fun.
- Social media posts and likes: Public posts about health topics, comments in support groups.
- Location data: Visits to clinics, pharmacies, or addiction recovery centers.
And it doesn’t stop there. Non-health data, like where you shop or the ads you click, gets combined to build a disturbingly accurate health profile.
A woman using a health app to keep track of pills (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
WHAT HACKERS CAN LEARN ABOUT YOU FROM A DATA BROKER FILE
Why selling your health data is more dangerous than you think
This isn’t harmless marketing data. When health information lands in the wrong hands, it creates real risks:
- Higher insurance premiums or limited coverage based on inferred health risks.
- Scams targeting seniors and vulnerable groups use lists of people flagged for dementia, heart disease, or other conditions.
- Privacy violations, exposing sensitive details like mental health struggles or fertility treatments.
- Discrimination in hiring, housing, or services based on health-related data.
- Resale to unknown third parties, making it impossible to control once it’s out there.
And it’s not just marketers. A recent government-backed autism study led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sparked outrage after it was revealed that private health data was collected from federal and commercial databases without clear safeguards. Security experts warn that this kind of large-scale data collection runs the risk of exposing deeply personal information with little oversight.
A healthcare professional looking at health data on a tablet. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
THINK YOU CAN DELETE YOUR OWN DATA? WHY IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK
8 ways to protect your health data from data brokers
Worried about who has access to your health data? While you can’t control every breach or broker, you can take steps to limit what’s collected, shared, and sold. Here’s how to take back control of your digital health footprint-starting today.
1) Use a personal data removal service: Data brokers collect and sell sensitive health information, including diagnoses, prescriptions, and personal identifiers, to marketers, insurers, and other third parties. This means details about your pharmacy purchases, symptom-related searches, and more could be circulating without your knowledge. A personal data removal service can help you take back control. This is one of the most effective ways to safeguard your privacy and protect yourself and your family from risks like scams, higher insurance premiums, and discrimination.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap – and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web
2) Audit your apps and privacy settings: Health and fitness apps collect more than you realize. Delete the ones you don’t trust and check permissions on the rest
3) Be wary of free health quizzes and symptom checkers: If a site asks for personal details in exchange for “insights,” assume it’s monetizing your answers. Consult your doctor, not a clickbait quiz.
4) Limit data sharing beyond healthcare providers: Only provide necessary information when signing up for health-related services or apps. Be wary of sharing health details on social media or in public forums, as these can be scraped by data brokers.
5) Request data minimization from providers: Ask your healthcare providers to collect and store only the minimum amount of personal information necessary for your care, reducing the risk if their systems are compromised.
6) Use strong antivirus software: Strong antivirus software acts as a shield, protecting your devices from malware, ransomware, and other cyber threats that could compromise your personal health data. Choose a reputable solution that offers real-time threat detection, regular updates, and robust protection for all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Keeping your antivirus up to date is crucial for blocking malicious links and downloads before they can do harm. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices.
7) Regularly update your software: Cyber threats targeting health data are constantly evolving, and outdated software can leave your devices vulnerable to attacks that expose your sensitive information. Keeping your operating system, apps, antivirus, and security tools up to date ensures you have the latest protections against malware, ransomware, and other exploits that data brokers or hackers might use to access your health information. Regular updates patch security holes before they can be exploited, helping to prevent breaches like those that have exposed millions of Americans’ health details in recent years.
8) Use strong and unique passwords: Your health data is often protected by passwords on apps, portals, and devices. Using strong, unique passwords for each account reduces the risk that a single breach could give someone access to multiple sources of your personal information. Avoid common or reused passwords, and consider using a password manager to generate and store complex passwords securely. This step is crucial because once your login credentials are compromised, data brokers or cybercriminals can gather and sell your health-related data, leading to privacy violations, discrimination, or targeted scams. Consider using a password manager to generate and store complex passwords. Get more details about my best expert-reviewed Password Managers of 2025 here.
Kurt’s key takeaways
Your health should be personal, but in today’s digital world, that privacy is constantly under threat. Even if you’re cautious, your health-related information can be collected, analyzed, and sold without your clear consent. The good news is that you can take real steps to reduce your exposure and protect what matters. This isn’t about fear; it’s about staying informed and taking control of your digital footprint.
Should lawmakers and tech companies be doing more to protect our health data, or is it all on us to safeguard our own privacy? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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Those little white robots that once rolled across college sidewalks with lattes, fries and late-night snacks are getting a new assignment. Starship Technologies recently announced that it will wind down its U.S. university campus operations and redeploy more than 1,200 robots toward grocery chains and hot food delivery in cities across the United States and Europe.
If you have ever watched one of these robots patiently wait at a crosswalk like a polite cooler on wheels, you know why students got attached. They became part campus convenience, part mascot. Now, the company is moving from a controlled campus setting into a much tougher public test.
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That raises the bigger question: will these cute campus robots be just as welcome when they start sharing crowded city sidewalks with you?
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Starship is winding down U.S. campus robot operations as it expands grocery delivery in the U.S. and Europe. (Starship)
Why Starship is pulling robots from college campuses
Starship says the decision comes down to focus. The company says its grocery delivery operations are on a 10x growth trajectory over the next two years, driven by demand from major retailers in the United States and Europe.
In Finland, Starship says its robots already complete roughly one in five grocery deliveries. That gives the company a real-world model it wants to repeat elsewhere. To support that expansion, more than 1,200 robots from U.S. campus fleets will be moved into grocery delivery. For Starship, that is a major pivot. Campuses helped the company build its brand in the U.S. They also gave the robots a place to learn.
Why college campuses were the perfect robot testing ground
Starship made a big U.S. splash at George Mason University in 2019, when the school became the first U.S. university to offer autonomous robot deliveries from Starship. From there, the robots spread to dozens of campuses. That made sense. College students are often hungry at odd hours. Many live without a full kitchen. They also tend to be open to new tech, especially when it brings food to the dorm without small talk.
During the pandemic, contactless delivery became even more appealing. A robot that could roll up with lunch while limiting person-to-person contact suddenly felt useful in a very different way.
The campus pullback will not happen overnight
Starship says it has worked with its university campuses and industry partners to keep service running through the 2026–2027 back-to-school season, with transition plans in place to reduce disruption. So, this does not appear to be an instant shutdown where every campus robot disappears at once. Instead, the company is moving away from the university model while preparing its fleet for a bigger push into grocery and restaurant delivery.
For students who loved the bots, it may still feel like the end of an era. For Starship, though, it is a move toward the market where the company believes the economics are stronger. Starship CEO and co-founder Ahti Heinla says the company’s robots can deliver groceries at a cost $3-$4 lower per delivery than traditional courier fulfillment. That is the kind of claim that gets the attention of retailers trying to make last-mile delivery less expensive.
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Why city sidewalks could be a tougher test
The next phase could get messy. Delivery robots have to share sidewalks with people who are walking, pushing strollers, using wheelchairs, carrying groceries or trying to catch a bus. That means every design choice matters. A robot that blocks a curb ramp can create a real problem. A robot that pauses in the wrong spot can turn from cute to irritating fast. If one reverses unexpectedly or gets stuck near a crosswalk, the novelty wears off even faster.
There have already been warning signs. Reports have described delivery robots bumping into people, getting stuck in odd places and raising accessibility concerns. Chicago has also seen local pushback and safety concerns around sidewalk delivery robots, which shows Starship still has work to do if it wants city residents to embrace them. That is the challenge Starship now faces. The same robot that felt charming on a campus may feel like clutter on a narrow sidewalk.
Starship Technologies is shifting more than 1,200 campus delivery robots to grocery and restaurant deliveries in cities. (Starship)
What grocery delivery changes
Grocery delivery is a different business from campus food delivery. A college order might be a sandwich, a soda or a late-night snack. A grocery run can involve heavier items, more frequent routes and customers who expect reliability every time. If Starship can make that work, the payoff could be huge. Grocery stores want cheaper local delivery. Customers want speed without sky-high fees. Cities want fewer cars clogging short delivery routes.
Starship says the global food delivery market is now worth $650 billion and needs delivery systems with higher autonomy levels. The company also says it has completed more than 10 million deliveries, which gives it a sizable head start in the sidewalk robot category.
However, the public will need convincing. People may welcome a robot bringing milk and eggs on a rainy night. They may also get annoyed if that same robot blocks a sidewalk during the morning rush. That will all decide whether sidewalk robots become normal or face more local limits.
Why Estonia still matters to Starship
Starship was founded in Tallinn, Estonia, in 2014 by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis. Estonia remains home to the company’s core engineering and AI development team. That is important because this shift is not only about where the robots operate.
The big question for robot delivery
Starship’s move shows where the delivery robot business is headed. College campuses helped make the robots likable. Grocery delivery may determine whether they become profitable. Still, the sidewalks belong to the public. That means companies need more than clever machines. They need trust, clear rules and designs that respect people who move through cities in different ways.
A delivery robot should never make a sidewalk harder to use for someone with a cane, stroller or wheelchair. It should not turn public space into an obstacle course. If companies want these robots to feel normal, they need to prove they can operate without making daily life more frustrating.
ARE HUMANOID ROBOTS NOW COMING FOR RETAIL JOBS?
Starship says grocery delivery demand is pushing its robot fleet from college campuses into urban neighborhoods. (Starship)
What this means to you
You may start seeing more delivery robots near grocery stores, restaurants and apartment-heavy neighborhoods. If that happens, pay attention to how they behave in your area. Look for whether they yield to pedestrians, avoid curb ramps and handle crowded sidewalks well. Also, check whether your city has rules for personal delivery devices. Some places allow pilot programs, while others limit where these robots can operate.
If a robot causes a problem, document it safely. Take a photo or video, note the location and report it to your city or the delivery company. That is important because local officials need real examples, not vague frustration, when they decide what rules should apply. There is also a privacy angle. These robots use sensors and cameras to navigate. Companies may say the data supports safe operation, but you still deserve clear answers about what gets collected, how long it is kept and whether law enforcement can request it.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Starship’s campus exit feels like the end of a quirky era, especially for students who got used to seeing the little robots rolling around campus. But this shift also tells us something bigger about where autonomous delivery is going. The next battle will happen on city sidewalks, not college campuses. If these robots save money and reduce short car trips, they could become very useful. But if they crowd walkways or create safety headaches, people will push back hard. To me, the real test is pretty clear. Robot delivery needs to work for everyone on the sidewalk, including people who never ordered anything.
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Would you be ok with a delivery robot on your block, or would you rather keep your sidewalks robot-free? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Our 250th birthday counts back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The declaration was a radical and astonishing document that still serves as America’s soul. But the beating heart of the nation wouldn’t come until more than a decade later, when the Constitution was ratified. That document is why I’m able to write this to you today. And we need you to help protect it.
The First Amendment to the Constitution is so potent that people across the world who live in places untouched by US law often seem to think they have the same rights it establishes. The First Amendment is our day-one theory of what makes a free society. It’s literally the first cure by the framers for a project they knew would be forever imperfect and incomplete — fixable only by way of the right to free expression.
The Verge exists today because of this great project. We believe in it deeply. The First Amendment affords us the knowledge that we’re likely free from imprisonment from expressing our freedom to speak. But journalism and speech are always under assault. It’s one of the reasons why we’ll always need lawyers despite likely having the strongest editorial ethics policy in the industry.
Here’s what the First Amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This is a compelling and beautiful idea. But we’ve had to fight to keep it alive from the beginning..
John Adams, one of the fiercest revolutionaries who railed against British tyrrany and helped secure independence, completely fucked up the First Amendement when he became the second US president. Adams’ series of Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 look positively Trumpian in retrospect, railing against foreigners, expanding presidential power to arrest, imprison, or deport people, and perhaps most insidiously, making it a crime for American citizens to print “scandalous and malicious” writings against the government. Adams surely loved the country he created, but nonetheless shrunk before the magnitude of its liberties.
Fast-forward to World War I, when the First Amendment was again under attack, this time by the Supreme Court. The court’s awful decision under Oliver Wendell Holmes was later overturned, but its fearful message about free speech still sticks with us. You’ve probably heard the phrase “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” — not actually true. The misquoting and misinterpretation here is darkly funny: Trevor Timm, in The Atlantic, notes the court decision the phrase refers to was actually about whether an American socialist “could be convicted under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft.” It almost sounds ripped from contemporary headlines. (Nearly a century later, the Espionage Act would be used again to target, this time, a New York Times journalist.)
Misunderstandings about the First Amendment still abound. On the front lines we most readily see it in police confrontations where armed agents of the state bungle their constitutional duties with disastrous results.
Cops are routinely so terrible at understanding America’s foundational law that there’s now a cottage industry of streamers and influencers who work as “First Amendment auditors” — people who intentionally flex their right to record in public to bait dummies into abridging their freedom of speech. It’s easy to go down TikTok rabbit holes where you’ll find someone recording an illegal traffic stop from inside their car, or a fully kitted streamer recording harassment on a public sidewalk. When the police inevitably show up to hassle someone for exercising their rights, the stakes are immediately raised.
In a best-case scenario, a higher-ranking cop arrives and dispels their colleagues’ unconstitutional conduct. In other cases, someone ends up getting detained or arrested for completely protected behavior.
It’s even worse than usual in 2026, because we now live under an administration that’s flooding cities with barely trained federal agents who see constitutionally protected behavior as a threat. This has resulted in deaths, assaults on reporters, and an untold broader cost of regular people having to endure the immense burden of confronting the justice system simply for doing things they have the fundamental right to do. The right to speak and assemble is especially valid when it’s in protest of the government. That’s the whole point of this thing! And yet.
The latest assaults on the First Amendment have been encouraged by people all the way up the chain of command. We’re being betrayed by officials who are supposed to protect us, people who swore an oath to the Constitution and ought to know better. The FCC is not supposed to regulate speech but has nonetheless become a nightmare of incompetence and civil rights suppression. Do you miss Stephen Colbert on The Late Show? Thank the Trump administration, which now operates a mob-like patronage system that has cowed the billionaire princes who own America’s broadcast networks. Or ask Jimmy Kimmel, who got kicked off the air after conservatives went nuclear over his tame remarks about Charlie Kirk, a man who spent his time poisoning our national discourse with none of the grace or wit employed by national talk show hosts.
The Trump regime in general has an incredibly disturbing record on free speech, from science to the operations of the largest social networks. Donald Trump rails against anyone who doesn’t bow to him, and the list of his victims is too long to enumerate. But here’s an important one: The president once threatened to jail Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for life. Zuckerberg is far more wealthy and powerful than Trump in many respects, but what did he do? Two years after the threat, Zuckerberg showed up on the White House lawn to celebrate Trump’s insane UFC fight show. He tapped out against a bully.
This is what makes everything really messy. We live in an age dominated by communication platforms that are so wealthy, powerful, and pervasive that they seem practically unrestrained by the US government, but paradoxically must still cozy up to a regime that has no actual respect for them or for their free speech. Trump once threatened to blow up the entire internet because he wanted platforms to censor things to his advantage. The CEOs of those companies still indulge him with flattery and photo ops.
This blurring of public and private interests has fueled a funhouse-mirror idea of “free speech culture” that’s actually designed to crack down on free speech. The loudest people crying about free speech culture do so as if theirs is not the freest ever in history, while simultaneously supporting actual government censorship, like banning books.
I can’t say it better than Ken White has, so just go read him on this point. White explains how “free speech culture” has emboldened the Trump admin and others to engage in real censorship. “When enough people think that all of free speech—including free speech law—is bullshit, then free speech rights won’t be enforced,” he writes.
Our constitutional punchbowl has been spiked by madmen who profit from confusion about our rights and the rule of law. It doesn’t have to be this way. Just remember: The First Amendment is a restraint on the government that prevents it from prohibiting your speech.
Moreover: Actual censorship is government suppression of speech. It’s entirely understandable that we’re confused about what censorship is because of how hard many people have worked to keep us confused. A social media platform moderating your post is not censorship — it’s actually free speech. Yes, that sounds completely counterintuitive, but it’s true. The alternative is a situation where the government forces private citizens to publish things they don’t want to, including hate speech.
Much was unsaid here, including the history of immense pain and suffering that has kept the First Amendment and our broader rights alive. I won’t claim to know what the fix is for our current mess, but I’ll say I really hate when our leaders say things like “this is not who we are” when they talk precisely about the things that define who we are. And part of who we are is a coalition that claims to want free speech in theory while simultaneously suppressing it in practice.
So what can you do? Yes, of course, vote. But there’s much more to do. Write or call your congresspeople (I promise this does matter). Participate in local elections, especially for school boards, which are on the front lines of book banning. And if you’re reading this, thank you for subscribing — but consider also supporting other newsrooms.
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