Data Brokers - The Invisible Threat to Your Privacy

Have you ever received targeted ads or recommendations on social media sites, search engines or retail websites that were strangely personal or specific?

There's a massive industry quietly collecting insane amounts of personal data about all of us. They're called data brokers.

Let’s take a look at what these companies do with your data, why it’s dangerous, and most importantly, how to protect yourself.

What is a Data Broker?

Data brokers are companies that buy and scrape granular private and public information, such as insurance survey databases, court records, and traffic violations, and cross-reference it with publicly available data, social media activity, browsing history, purchase data, etc.

The average data broker collects about 1.7 megabytes of data per second on people. That means that one sector of the industry alone could physically store data on millions of people.

These brokers combine and analyze this data to create creepily detailed profiles on each person. Profiles they then sell to other businesses and organizations for marketing purposes, fraud detection, credit checks, and other uses.

So all those targeted ads and recommendations you see online? That's made possible by the massive amount of personal info data brokers collect and sell about you, your family, and pretty much everyone you know. 

The Business of Data Brokerage

Data brokers rely on both public and private sources to gather insane amounts of intel on people. Here are some of the ways they get their hands on all this info:

Public Records

• Voter registration information

• Property records

• Marriage and divorce records

• Bankruptcies

• Court documents

Government Sources

• Driver's license records

• Vehicle registrations

• Census data

Social Media

• Your posts, likes, shares, groups you join

• Tracked via pixels, cookies, and social media APIs

Web Browsing History

• Websites you visit

• Your searches and clicks

• Captured via ad trackers, analytics services, session recordings, and your internet service provider (ISP)

Retail Loyalty Programs

• Your purchase history and habits

• Connected to your name and contact info

Mobile Apps

• Location data, contacts, device IDs, etc.

• Much of this gets sold by app developers

Data Breaches

• Emails, passwords, and other info gathered by hacking gets traded on black markets.

These are just the most common ways in which your data is exposed online. With access to all these sources, data brokers can piece together incredibly detailed profiles on all of us - our identities, lifestyles, habits, interests, networks, literally thousands of data points.

It's enough to make you want to throw your computer out the window, right?

What Are They Doing With All This Data?

To data brokers, your personal info is a precious commodity with huge monetary value. It gets bought, sold, and traded in a massive hidden marketplace.

Recent estimates value this "surveillance capitalism" personal data market at over $200 billion. So who's buying up all this data and what are they using it for?

• Advertisers - To serve you targeted ads based on your interests and demographics

• Retailers - To analyze shopping habits, predict consumer behavior, customize messaging and offers

• Political Groups - Microtargeting voters, fundraising, campaign analytics

• Insurance Firms - Calculate risk levels, determine premiums, detect fraud, settle claims

• Background Check Services - Employment checks, tenant screenings, private investigation databases

• Law Enforcement - Gather intelligence, conduct investigations, predictive policing algorithms

• Financial Institutions - Analyze creditworthiness, authorize transactions, detect fraud

• Data Enrichment Companies - Enhance consumer profiles by adding more data

And so many others. As you can see, your personal data gets used in both ethical and extremely questionable ways. But what does this mean for ordinary people?

The Dangers of Publicly Available Data

Having extensive details about your identity, habits, interests, and networks widely available in the data broker economy is not only creepy, but can seriously jeopardize your privacy and security.

Here are some examples of how exposed personal data could be misused:

Identity Theft

With access to your full name, birth date, address, etc. thieves can easily impersonate you and open fraudulent accounts or make purchases in your name. This can be a nightmare to deal with.

Discrimination

Details like your race, gender, income, or sexual orientation could be used to unfairly deny you job opportunities, loans, insurance coverage and more if disclosed.

Stalking and Harassment

Abusers could obtain your contact info, place of employment, daily routine, etc. to stalk and harass you.

Blackmail

Knowledge of private behaviors, conversations, memberships, etc. could be used for extortion.

Targeted Scams

Scammers can use personal details to make them seem more believable and manipulate you into handing over money or sensitive information.

Unauthorized Tracking

Your location data reveals where you live, work, visit doctors, attend religious services, go to political events, travel, and more.

Behavior Analysis

Your data might be used to make evaluations about your personality, political persuasions, interests, etc. that could be inaccurate or used against you.

Automated Decision-Making

Inaccurate or unfair profiles derived from your data can inform algorithms used by banks, employers, government agencies in ways that impact your life.

And so much more. Most troubling is that this data sharing happens completely behind the scenes, without our knowledge or permission. That's not cool.

How to Protect Your Privacy

This all seems pretty bleak, but don't panic. There are steps you can take to minimize your exposure:

Limit Your Digital Footprint

Be selective about sharing personal info online. Tips:

• Use an email without your name, don't link it to social media

• Avoid sharing your phone number, home address, job, birthday publicly

• Don't take social media quizzes, surveys, contests

• Use a VPN and private browsing

• Regularly clear cookies, history, caches

Adjust Privacy Settings

Enable the strictest privacy settings on all your devices, accounts, services. Limit data access.

Remove Yourself From Data Broker Sites

Use opt-out services to find and delete your info. You can also do this yourself by finding the contact information of the data brokerage site and expressing your desire to be removed from their database.

Exercise Caution on Public WiFi & Sites

Using public WiFi or following links to sites you’ve never heard of can expose your data. Since anyone can connect to unprotected WiFi hotspots, cybercriminals often monitor the network and have systems in place to collect data of unsuspecting internet users.

Some websites can also use trackers to spy on your activity and steal personal info. Look out for websites that don’t have SSL protection or bombard you with popups and ads.

Read Privacy Policies & Terms

Actually read privacy policies to know what data a company collects and how they can use it.

Take legal action

In some cases, data misuse can be severe enough to warrant legal action. If your personal information has been mishandled, sold without consent, or used in ways that cause harm, you may be able to pursue legal recourse. Consult with a lawyer or read up on similar cases reported by ConsumerShield to determine if there are grounds for a lawsuit.

It's clear the data broker industry is a major threat to privacy. But by minimizing your digital footprint, monitoring your data, and leveraging privacy tools, you can help protect yourself.

Final Thoughts

Data brokers are quietly collecting insane amounts of personal info from public and private sources without our permission. They create creepily detailed digital profiles on each of us that get bought and sold in a massive hidden marketplace. 

This data trading powers target ads, credit checks, and more - but also puts our privacy at great risk.