ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago is a home rule unit of government pursuant to the 1970 Illinois Constitution, Article VII, Section 6(a); and
WHEREAS, pursuant to its home rule power, the City of Chicago may exercise any power and perform any function relating to its government and affairs including the power to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and
WHEREAS, as our physical and Internet "virtual" lives become increasingly coextensive, so do the risks; and
WHEREAS, over two-thirds of Chicago residents connect to the Internet to, among other things, send and store business communications, search for jobs, purchase health insurance information, bank online, pay taxes, and connect with family, friends, and associates; and
WHEREAS, these "virtual" interactions are an actual commodity—the value, depth, and scope of which is unknown to most of those who are its source; and
WHEREAS, convenience and commerce threaten to leave long-held notions of personal privacy's worth in their wake; and
WHEREAS, we are increasingly called upon to challenge and examine the license of others to plunder private aspects of our lives for profit; and
WHEREAS, the collection and use of information that we offer up so freely has been a covert enterprise for far too long; and
WHEREAS, as practically every aspect of private and public business is conducted and stored on virtual networks and warehouses, data breaches are occurring more frequently and with more potentially disastrous repercussions; and
WHEREAS, for example, in 2017 Equifax discovered evidence of a cyber-security breach that compromised the sensitive and private consumer information of approximately 148 million United States consumers and approximately 5.4 million Illinoisans; and
WHEREAS, the injury of the breach was compounded by an undue delay in reporting it, exploitative "remedies" from which the company stood to profit, and other allegations of corporate malfeasance; and...
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