Over the last few months or so, I’ve learned a lot about how safe or unsafe our personal information is on the internet. Or maybe the question should be “how much of my personal information is out there?”. The answer is a lot more than you think. Now, I’ll address the “safe” issue later on. Let’s talk first about “how much data” are we talking about.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I watched an episode of CBS 60 Minutes called : “The Data Brokers“. According to the report, some data brokers have about 1500 points of data on you. Anything from your address, gender, age, religious affiliation, etc and things more obscure such as what time you go to bed, a disease you may have and what type of medication you take on a regular basis. So how do they know all of this?
Think about it for a second, every time you like or share something on Facebook or Twitter or Google+, that data is recorded. When you visit a website, an online news outlet, read some gossip, buy something on Amazon, its recorded. All that data is recorded and makes it part of your profile. Even if you don’t sign up for anything, your IP address and your computer may be giving the clue to data brokers that it’s YOU…and they collect it in your profile.
Another way data is collected on you is via Apps you download on your mobile phone. The 60 minutes claims that Apps like “Brightest Flashlight Free” are nothing more than data collecting Apps. True, it gives you an amazing App that allows you to use your phone as a flashlight in a dark place, but its intended purpose for the developer is to collect data. Same thing with games like Angry Bird, they allow to play and in return you share data, whether you like it or not. Did you know that? and….have you ever read the Agreement you are requested to click on before you download an App? because it’s there, in plain English, that you are agreeing to allow the App to collect some data on your phone sometime via your location and the GPS locator.
Look at the App Permissions for a Traffic monitoring App called Waze on the right. Specifically look at the last section: permission to access your calendar? events?? confidential information?? read your contacts?? Really? for a traffic monitoring App??!!
Yes they want to know where you are at all time. They want to know where you shop, where you eat, how long you stayed, etc.
Now that I most likely got you in a state of “OMG…I feel violated”, bare in mind that this practice has been done for many many years. Initially via your credit card purchases where they could discover a lot about you via your purchase history. They have just gone a lot more sophisticated.
Just recently I’ve begun to go bike riding around the lake in my area and I use an App called Endomondo to calculate my speed, duration, calories burn hydration. It also follows me on the map so I can see where I’ve been. Once the ride is completed, the event is shared with my Facebook account and my friends will make comments on my post. Now all of this seems pretty standard & innocent stuff until I started receiving a newsletter for a bicycle magazine. I never signed up for it. How could they possibly think I’d be interested? Coincidence? I think not. The Bicycle magazine is probably buying data from Endomondo and looking for man in my age group and my income geographical area that may be potential buyers. Is that fair? I think so, I don’t have a problem with that. First Endomondo is Free, they are giving me access to a pretty cool application and it’s not costing me a dime. Second, the bicycle magazine is not a far fetched connection, I do ride a bicycle and enjoy it very much. And Endomondo most likely told me they were going to do that in the terms I agreed to without reading a single word. The easy fix for me was to unsubscribe to the magazine and move on. It’s part of the deal.
It’s important to note that companies like Facebook and Google keep the data to themselves. In order words, they don’t share it with anyone. Their intent is too feed you the best possible information based on what they know about you. That’s their game. There is a lot of talk about whether the opt-in option need to be better defined and the argument is that people are not really giving consent to sharing all of that data. I’d agree with that, and each of us also need to take responsibility that when you use all of those services for Free: Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apps, etc, you are exchanging FREE services for your personal data.
Ask yourself this: am I willing to provide a lot of personal information in exchange for free App and free Internet?