Unhappy about the personal data that shows up when you Google your name? Here’s a guide to understanding where this information comes from and how you can improve your online privacy.
Data brokers are companies that make money collecting and trading personal data belonging to consumers they don’t ever do direct business with. Data brokers sell your personal information to marketers, financial institutions, political consultants, employers and landlords doing background checks, and crucially, anyone else with money to spend. Unfortunately, this means that cybercriminals have easy access to information that can help facilitate cybercrimes like stalking, doxxing, and identity theft.
Here are a few key sources data brokers use to mine for people’s personal information and how you can limit their activities.
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Remember the adage “there is no such thing as a free lunch”? This is certainly true of all the apps we supposedly use for free on our mobile phones. Their hidden cost is your personal information. The apps make money by selling your data or by charging companies for advertisements that target you.
Every phone is given a unique ID number called “mobile advertising identifier” that is specific to the device you use. Each app has multiple third-party partners that get access to a little bit of your personal data along with this ID number.
For example, one app may give a data broker your exact location, another app may share your name and surname, and yet another app may reveal your phone number. Data brokers can collate this information to create a very clear picture of who you are, including your interests, family and friends, and even pets.
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Data brokers use automated scraping bots to copy your public profile information, including your name, location, phone number, email address, photos, and more. They then connect this information with other data points they have on you.
Although scraping is against social media networks’ terms of use, data brokers still do it. If they get caught, they sell the data they scraped to other data brokers and disappear before they are faced with legal action.
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Data brokers buy anonymized and aggregated credit card transaction information from credit card processing networks. According to Fast Company, Mastercard made $4.1 billion in 2019 from this type of service.
You might be wondering: if transaction data is anonymized, how can data brokers link it back to you? It’s really quite simple:
In a 2014 investigation, the Federal Trade Commission found that data brokers use credit and debit card transaction data to place consumers into various categories, like “Bible Lifestyle,” “Plus-size Apparel,” and “Modest Wages.”
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Everywhere you go online, your behavior and activities are tracked via cookies. Cookies are small text files that identify your computer when you visit a particular website. While some cookies are useful (for example, they may record your login information and remember items in your shopping cart), others track your browsing history across the web.
Data brokers buy your personal information from third parties that observe your web browsing. In some cases, data brokers may also place cookies on consumers’ browsers themselves and then give their clients the option to advertise to those consumers across the web. It’s because of cookies that you keep seeing highly targeted ads everywhere you go on the internet.
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Data brokers collect most of their information from public records. Public records include things like voter registration information, census data, birth certificates, property records, vehicle registration records, marriage licenses, and divorce records.
Unfortunately, most public records are available to anyone who requests to see them. For this reason, data brokers are not technically breaking any laws when they scrape public records. That being said, some public records are confidential or have eligibility requirements. For example, under certain circumstances, you may be able to seal your divorce records.
Sadly, these aren’t the only sources data brokers harvest their data points from. Other sources include (but are not limited to) periodical subscriptions, loyalty card services, and online polls and surveys.
While it’s not possible to delete your online and offline footprint entirely, that doesn’t mean that you should tolerate companies you’ve never even heard of amassing huge amounts of data about you.
In addition to following the advice outlined above, you should also take the time to opt-out of all the major data brokers and people search sites out there. Check out our step-by-step guide on how to do that or subscribe to DeleteMe to have a team of professionals do it for you.
DeleteMe is our premium privacy service that removes you from more than 30 data brokers like Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, plus many more.
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