What is a Data Broker and How They Affect Your Privacy
They should be illegal, yet somehow they aren't
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One of the most notorious ways that your privacy and data are being violated is by an entity that very few know about: data brokers. Data brokers are individuals or businesses that harvest, process, and sell your data to others, such as advertising companies. They do this with the information that is available online, offline, and from third-party companies. Oh, and this is all done without getting your consent, which makes it all the more aggravating and, honestly, makes me furious that they can get away with this.
What kind of information do they collect?
Names, date of birth, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, employment history, financial situation, religious affiliations, etc. They essentially collect and sell your whole life story, and you wouldn't even know it. They do this by scraping off the information that is available online, such as social media, or from information that they get from third parties, such as credit card companies.
How does data brokers affect privacy?
It should be apparent by now that this is all a privacy concern. All of this information that they get from you is being sold to third-party companies, who in turn either sell it or profit off of it. This allows them to create a profile on you that you might not agree with but do not have much power to change or delete. They also have information that you would rather not have anyone have access to, but they either don’t allow you to make changes or make it quite difficult to.
Even if you have the opportunity to remove it (more on that later), there are still issues such as needing to request and ensure that data brokers follow through on this demand, information can be floating in the dark web (which is a whole other problem), and data breaches. Data breaches are especially a headache because it seems like there is a new one every week, and they contain enough information for someone to find it and cause you mayhem. However, if companies and data brokers didn't collect so much information in the first place, perhaps data breaches could be just a little less scary.
What can be done?
Stronger Data Privacy Laws - The European Union has the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), which regulates data brokers and strengthens individuals privacy rights. This is a good start. The law also allows individuals to either have their information changed or deleted, which gives them more control over their privacy and data.
The United States, however, is a different story. While some states, such as California and Virginia, have passed similar laws to the GDPR that can make it easier to protect their personal information, there is no comprehensive federal law that allows this. While the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill making it illegal for data brokers to sell data to foreign adversaries such as China and Russia, it does nothing to rein in data brokers here in the states from collecting and selling information and violating users' privacy and data. If the United States passed strong federal laws, then data brokers would have less power over people's privacy and data, giving individuals more control, similar to the E.U.
Be careful with the personal information you share on the web - This might seem like a no-brainer to some, but if you don’t want data brokers or anyone in general collecting information on you, then limit the amount of information that you are sharing. Any sharing of information on the web makes it easier for them to collect and sell it. If you have social media accounts, consider making them private. Private profiles make it harder for data brokers and companies to collect data on you. Check the privacy settings on all accounts and services that you have in order to control what data they have.
Remove personal information - With a greater awareness of people wanting to take back their data and privacy, some sites are making it easier to take down their information. For example, Whitepages, an online directory, collects way too much information on you. It is publicly available and you can even buy the information, which is concerning. Now, you have the option to have it removed. You should also delete accounts that you no longer use so they can stop scraping data from them.
Should you use a service that removes your information for you?
There are services that can remove your information for you. This makes it easier, as you don’t have to do it yourself, and they definitely have the tools and outreach to keep information out of bad actors hands. Some popular ones are DeleteMe and Incogni.
The problem I have with these services is that you have to give them personal information in order to delete or remove said personal information from the web. It’s makes me nervous to trust these businesses with personal information in hopes that they remove it without really knowing if they are doing that. Onerep, a data removal company, is finding itself in hot water. A recent story on them claims that the founder of the company is actually responsible for several people's search services, which goes against their mission and opens up a bunch of questions.
If you do want to use a service that removes your information for you, then make sure you do your research. Check reviews, read their privacy policies, and be alert overall. Make sure the service that you use has a good history and record before you give them any information.
What do you think? If you have anything to say about data brokers, feel free to leave them in the comments.
Until Next Time,
Monique 🔐
Sources:
https://softwarelab.org/blog/what-is-a-data-broker/
https://dataprot.net/articles/what-is-a-data-broker/
https://dataprot.net/guides/list-of-data-brokers/
Additional link for further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/11/sweden-freedom-of-information-laws-deadly-bombings?ref=upstract.com
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