New York, Los Angeles, Other Major Cities Are New Privacy Cops

Major U.S. cities are becoming hotbeds for privacy enforcement.

Los Angeles’ recent lawsuit against IBM Corp. and its Weather Channel app for allegedly mining users’ location data without their consent highlights a growing list of cities that have sued some of the biggest tech companies in the nation for violating municipal and state privacy laws.

Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. also have brought privacy lawsuits against Uber Technologies Inc., Equifax Inc., and Facebook Inc., among others, for their alleged mishandling of personal data.

Companies may start facing even more actions from city officials aiming to rein in ...