Data brokers may know all sorts of things about you.

Where you live.

Your shoe size.

Your birth date.

Where you work.

Education level.

Income.

Religion.

All this and perhaps more. And they likely have it for your children as well. That sort of information about people is bought and sold.

Data brokers have sold lists of data revealing the homes of law enforcement, revealing the locations of domestic violence shelters.

It’s a big industry. It’s largely unregulated.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has a pair of bills this session aimed at trying to give Oregonians some control over how their information is bought and sold.

House Bill 2052 basically requires data brokers to register with the state. There are many exemptions. And the maximum penalty for violations by a data broker may not stop them from doing what they want. The maximum penalty is $10,000. A company could pay that and just ignore Oregon’s registration requirement. But there would also likely be publicity about violations and that may curtail misbehavior.

Senate Bill 619 is a privacy bill. It gives consumers more tools for opting out of their data being collected and sold without their consent.

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum testified Wednesday about HB 2052. A bill similar to it died last year.

Maybe these bills stand a better chance, but we don’t have any real insight into that.

These bills need a lot of eyes on them to ensure the Legislature gets them right. You can read the bills and the related testimony about them, tinyurl.com/orprivacybill and tinyurl.com/ORdatabrokerbill. And you can always reach out to your legislator and tell them what you think, www.oregonlegislature.gov.