The headlines always draw attention. Cable networks are abuzz. A hundred thousand names here, two hundred thousand account numbers there, all with Social Security numbers. When big companies and government lose personal data, it’s a big deal, and people worry.

But is this kind of data theft really something the average American should worry about? Given how little people can do to protect themselves from an IRS data breach or the hacking of a department store or bank, the news makes people afraid but accomplishes nothing else. If you cannot protect yourself, worrying is a waste of time. Worse, it takes attention away from threats we can protect ourselves against, including online services promising anyone’s name, address and other personal information.

If you have ever Googled your own name, or someone else’s, you’ve had the ads for the data brokers presented alongside the results. These are the services that claim to have found you, or the name you entered, and promise to show you contact and other information, always for a price. If you have time you might want to explore and see what information is offered, but be cautious with your money.

Or maybe you have been presented with surprising online “challenge questions” as a way to prove your identity. Questions about where you’ve lived. The mascot of a school you attended as a child. The sorts of things that seem as if only you or someone very close to you should know.

Did you ever stop to wonder where this information comes from? Chances are it came from one of the hundreds of data brokers who collect and aggregate information from all manner of databases and public records, or from data you entered when you agreed with a company’s online terms of service without reading the privacy policy.

When one of these companies – called a data aggregator or data broker – gathers enough of this information, they can sell a surprisingly complete profile of most Americans. Much of the information isn’t the kind of detail that most of us would want a stranger to have — especially if the information is wrong.

How can wrong information hurt you? A data aggregator might link you to a non-existent criminal relative because you share the same last name and home town, for example. A database that wrongly lists a single person as married could easily cost them a date or maybe an established relationship. Incorrect job information that makes it appear you lied on a resume could cost you your job, hurt your credit, or keep you from being recruited for a new job.

Of course, the data brokers who aggregate personal information are very careful to tell potential customers or website visitors that they are a public records search service, and not a consumer reporting agency. They explain (in great detail) that the information they provide is not governed by federal consumer protection laws like the Fair Credit Reporting Act that regulate how information is used, and provide penalties for inaccurate data.

The customers who use the online sites that sell personal information are warned that they may not use the information contained in the data broker’s reports to make decisions about consumer credit, employment, insurance, tenant screening, or “any other purposes that would require FCRA compliance.”

But do you believe that every person who accesses such a database will follow the rules? The creators of the online privacy solution IdentaLocker don’t believe that every user who purchases such a report will follow the rules. You probably shouldn’t either because once the correct (or incorrect) information is in someone’s hands, what they do with it is nearly impossible to predict.

What’s Worse: Information that’s Wrong – or Right?

Wrong information is bad enough. But sometimes, correct information can be even more dangerous to your reputation, your job, or your family’s safety. Nearly everyone has something in their past they haven’t shared with those closest to them. Maybe it was a “bad boy” you dated in college, who went on to rack up an impressive rap sheet. Or maybe it was an embarrassing traffic ticket you wouldn’t want your kids to hear about.

But the real danger may lie in correct information that shouldn’t be public knowledge. Why? Because it’s a shortcut to identity theft. The data brokers create a profile of you based on bits and pieces of data they’ve collected from a wide range of online and offline sources. With enough data, someone can pretend to be you. An identity thief can ruin your reputation by posing as you even if only long enough to cause trouble with your job, friends and family.

But most of us worry about the severe financial burden that identity theft can impose when a stranger runs up credit card debts, medical bills, or even traffic tickets. Data brokers collecting and selling personal information about American consumers are everywhere. Some of them are famous companies, and others are unknown by anyone except their customers.

Even if you think you have already locked down your privacy, you are likely to be amazed at what you find is out there. For example, did you know that most states make marriage and divorce records public? That databases containing property tax records, voter registration data, political campaign donations, and state-issued licenses for everything from hunting to handgun permits are a matter of public record? That you can find street-level photos or satellite images of almost any piece of property? And that’s just part of the mountain of data that’s out there for nearly every one of us.

IdentaLocker says that identity theft based on information purchased from the public information data brokers is a big risk to consumer’s wallets, and also to the personal safety of the victim’s family.

The IdentaLocker service monitors more than a thousand databases, with more than 650 billion data points, and helps victims rapidly detect identity fraud and restore their identity if it is compromised.

For more information on how to protect your online privacy and personal information from inaccuracies in the databases maintained by data brokers, visit the IdentaLocker and InfoEraser websites.

An international criminal network may still get some of your personal information through a data breach. But this kind of theft is usually reported soon after it happens, so consumers know what to look for, and the company that lost the data has a responsibility to help consumers minimize or repair the damage.

It’s the hidden information, used by people who have a grudge against you and those who want to assume your identity so they can acquire goods or services at your expense, which can really hurt you. Protection from that kind of damage is the most valuable protection of all.”

Photo credit: The black and white photo of the man in the fedora, representing a hacker who causes a data breach that steals personal information, was taken by photographer Ryan McGuire. The photo of the man’s face as a jigsaw puzzle, representing the way data brokers assemble a profile of consumers from bits and pieces of data scraped from online and offline sources, was created by the graphic artist Geralt. Both images are used under Creative Commons licenses from Pixabay.

The post The Biggest Privacy Danger From Personal Data Loss Isn’t What You Think appeared first on Welcome To IdentaLocker.

Data brokers and data aggregators like Instant Checkmate know more about you than you may realize. They collect information about all of us from online and offline sources, and happily sell personal information to marketers or display it online for the whole world to see. They’re drawing a portrait of you based on a massive amount of data, and there are few checks on the accuracy of the data they’re collecting, so the portrait they paint can be misleading.

The downside of having accurate or inaccurate personal information collected and shared can be huge.

Do you have any enemies who might use negative information against you? Upset coworkers, competitors, exes, stalkers and anyone else with a grudge – or just too much curiosity – can go online and find more information than most people are comfortable sharing.

It’s easy to do.“Been issued a speeding ticket? Failed to stop at a stop sign? What about your family members and friends?” asks an ad for one of the large data aggregators.“If you are like most of us, the answer to at least one of those questions is ’yes’—the vast majority of us have slipped up at least once or twice.” The company is one of dozens that promises to reveal “the full scoop on millions of Americans.”

“(Our company) aggregates hundreds of millions of publicly available criminal, traffic, and arrest records and posts them online so they can easily be searched by anyone. Members of the site can literally begin searching within seconds, and are able to check as many records as they like (think: friends, family, neighbors, etc. etc.),” the ad promises.

What Personal Information about You is Available Online?

The data brokers collect and display a huge range of personal information about average Americans. What kind of personal information? Here’s a list of just some of the data that could be available about your family:

• Marriage & divorce records
• Licenses issued by the state (medical, firearm, aviation, teaching credentials, hunting and fishing licenses, etc.)
• Arrest records (arrest records may be available even if charges were later dropped, and traffic offenses are usually readily available)
• Current and previous addresses (probably with street-level or satellite images of the property)
• Landline and cell phone numbers
• Birthdates (for you and your kids)
• Estimated income levels
• Property tax records
• Political campaign donations and voter’s registration data
• ”Known associates” including neighbors, relatives and friends
• Former and current employers, including the street address where you work
• Social media profiles, with links to social media accounts

Even the data brokers admit on their blogs that, “It’s really pretty scary just how much information is in these reports.”

Identity Theft and Other Risks Posed by Data Brokers

Data aggregation – that is, bringing together information from a wide range of on and offline sources — is the Internet’s dirtiest secret and biggest threat to personal privacy and liberty. It is the same sort of thing the NSA does only it’s done by private businesses. Worse, most of these data aggregators place the burden of verifying the information’s accuracy on consumers (whether they know what information the data broker has collected about them or not).

How is that possible? Shouldn’t there be a law to protect consumers from having their personal information splashed all over the Internet? Well, there is – sort of. Federal law limits the kind of information that credit reporting companies can collect and distribute, and places strict requirements on how the information that they collect and resell is used. And a number of states have consumer protection laws that allow consumers to opt out of the files kept by data brokers.

But only companies that provide data for use in situations governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) must follow the federal guidelines on the accuracy of personal information they sell.

The data brokers who aggregate personal information are very careful to tell potential customers or website visitors that they are a public records search service, and not a consumer reporting agency. They explain (in great detail) that the information they provide is not governed by the FCRA.

Site users are asked to accept a list of permitted – and prohibited – uses for the data. For example, users of most data aggregation sites are warned multiple times during the process of downloading reports of someone’s personal information that they may not use the information contained in the data broker’s reports to make decisions about consumer credit, employment, insurance, tenant screening, or “any other purposes that would require FCRA compliance.”

Here’s what the data brokers encourage their customers to do:

• Check out “new, suspicious, or creepy neighbors”.
• Search for registered sex offenders in your neighborhood.
• Track down “estranged members of your extended family, or find out if your parents have ever been arrested.”
• Run background checks on your childrens’ friends and their parents – or on your own friends or potential dates.
• Learn the details your social media friends, online buyers and sellers, or co-workers won’t tell you about themselves.
• Identify the past records of college roommates or study partners.
• Find out if a celebrity or political candidate has a criminal record.

And, of course, the data brokers encourage consumers to pay them for a report on themselves, so that they can find out what information is available about themselves.

If the information about you that has been collected by the aggregators is accurate, then all those details – family members, old addresses, and other personal information – make identity theft ridiculously easy.

How to Protect Your Personal Information

IdentaLocker, a leading service provider that helps prevent identity theft or repair the damage afterwards, says that identity theft based on information purchased from the public information data brokers is more common than people think. Figuring out what personal information about yourself is available to an identity thief is important. And it’s a daunting task that takes far more time and effort than you’d think.

But inaccurate or just plain wrong information can hurt even more consumers. You don’t have to be the victim of identity theft to be harmed by the data brokers. Do you want to bet your next job, relationship, or credit purchase that every customer of the data aggregators is following the rules about how the data is used? On the accuracy of information scraped from public databases?

According to the company, protecting the privacy of personal information doesn’t just affect your wallet. An identity thief can compromise your safety or that of your family, or even your life.

IdentaLocker monitors more than a thousand databases, with more than 650 billion data points, and helps victims rapidly detect identity fraud and restore their identity if it is compromised. For more information on how to protect your online privacy and personal information from inaccuracies in the databases maintained by data brokers, visit the IdentaLocker and InfoEraser websites.

Photo credit: The two images included with this blog post are published under a Creative Commons License from Pixabay, and were created by anonymous contributors to the site.

The post What Google Won’t Tell You about Yourself: Data Brokers & their Hidden Online Privacy Risk appeared first on Welcome To IdentaLocker.

Businesses that collect, store and use people’s data are most at risk of attracting hackers and regulatory oversight, Forrester said. The data brokers also stand to suffer the most when consumers decide to prioritize privacy over convenience, something that is already beginning to shape online behavior as consumers attempt to protect themselves from privacy abuses or identity theft.

Forrester’s 2016 privacy report notes the following trends:

• More Internet-based businesses will offer “fremium” models, offering consumers the option to pay (or pay more) for fewer ads, with more privacy.
• More users will begin using software that blocks ads when they are browsing. Forrester says about 26% of American adults currently use ad blocking tools, but that number may double over the next year.
• More regulations for cookies and trackers may be in the pipeline at the state and local level. Forrester says that many businesses are becoming uncomfortable with the amount of data that companies like Facebook can collect from a “Share on Facebook” icon, noting that Facebook can see every user’s activity, not just the activity of those who click “like”.

These predictions are good news for consumers who are worried about their privacy. But they don’t alleviate the very real threat of identity theft and other serious consequences that consumers face from the profiles compiled by data brokers. In fact, FTC commissioner Julie Brill told Congress in 2014 that the problem was already so widespread that consumers can no longer protect their privacy and personal information from identity thieves without outside help.

What’s Missing from Forrester’s Predictions

The Forrester report cites some positive steps for consumers, such as more regulatory oversight, and more care taken by companies who unknowingly feed information to the data brokers. 2016 will also see a new law in Europe that may curb some of the excesses. Few companies will want to risk the loss of up to 5% of global revenues for violating the European Union’s new data protection law, so global companies are expected to take steps to better protect the personally identifiable information they hold about customers, employees, and partners.
But the problem isn’t the kind of data breach or lax security that the EU’s law is designed to address. It’s that there is a whole industry of data brokers out there who gather public and private data from offline and online sources, and then market that data to third parties.

Some of the information these data brokers gather about all of us comes from government sources such as property tax rolls, and some comes from the information we voluntarily give up when we register a product as part of the warranty process or sign up for an online service. By matching the offline and online data about individuals, the data brokers are able to create amazingly detailed profiles of each person’s behavior, likes, dislikes, finances, health, and political opinions.

How to Protect Yourself

Most of the marketers who buy profiles from the data brokers want to use the information to better target their advertising and content marketing. And most Americans don’t mind it when someone delivers information they’re interested in rather than spamming them with information that doesn’t apply.

The trouble is that the same information a marketer uses to decide whether or not you should view a video about a new sports car or a family SUV can be used to help an identity thief masquerade as you. The problem is huge:

• 15 million Americans face identity theft every year.
• 85% of ID theft cases use information from existing accounts.
• Identity theft costs Americans and American businesses 50 billion per year.

It isn’t enough to carefully monitor what kind of data you enter online. There have been many identity thieves who don’t use the Internet – elderly and retired people are at special risk.
For a growing percentage of Americans, the best protection from ID theft is a service like IdentaLocker that can ensure that your personal information and identity are safe and secure. After years of research and testing, the IdentaLocker service protects customers before and after their personal information has been compromised.

Waiting for the government to tighten controls, or for businesses to take steps to curb the abuses just doesn’t make sense for most of us. It’s time to take action to protect ourselves, and that means getting help from an established company with experience in helping Americans facing identity theft.

Ready to stop worrying and start getting protected?

The post 2016: The Year Privacy Concerns Demand Action? appeared first on Welcome To IdentaLocker.