Anchorage Daily News
By: Bethany Marcum

In today’s world, technology isn’t something we use once in a while. It is the system we live in. We pay bills, transfer money and manage our finances on phones and laptops before most of us have had our first cup of coffee. With so much of life now running through digital pipelines, Alaskans deserve to know who controls their data and how securely it is being handled.

The Biden administration’s Section 1033 “open banking” rule claimed to give consumers more control over their data. In practice, it did the opposite. The rule required banks to hand over detailed financial information to data middlemen companies that few consumers recognize and even fewer knowingly trust. Moreover, the so-called “consent” behind this data sharing is often hidden in dense terms and conditions that no ordinary person reads, much less fully understands.

I have spent much of my life working in both the private sector and public service. One thing I have learned is that government systems just become bigger bureaucracies over time. The Biden-era 1033 rule shifted power toward Washington, D.C., and the data-broker industry, while leaving consumers more exposed and less informed. That is not modernization. It is misdirection.