Fast Facts
The Commerce Department found that since 2001 the department's 15 operating units had lost track of 1,137 laptop computers.
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Protecting Your Personal Data
Hello,
I came across this great article from consumer reports which is really eye-opening.
October 2006
Your privacy for sale
CR Quick Take
Large data brokers have your numbers--Social Security, phone, and credit cards. They might also know about the drugs you take, what you buy, your political party, and your sexual orientation. When we investigated this secretive industry, we discovered:
• Data brokers are willing to sell even your most sensitive information to paying customers, some of them crooks.
• When CR staffers asked to see their own files, they received scant information. One report contained 31 errors.
• The federal government is a steady customer of the data collectors, but there’s no way to know what it collects or exactly how much it pays.
• Pretexters, who lie to get information about you and sell it to anybody, operate largely free of regulation.
Until Valentine’s Day weekend 2005, Elizabeth Rosen had never heard of ChoicePoint. But ChoicePoint, it turns out, knew plenty about her.
That’s when Rosen, a nurse, received a letter and found out that the Alpharetta, Ga., company had collected information about her. Among the sensitive items it had: her Social Security number, records of her insurance claims, her current and past addresses, and her employment history. Now ChoicePoint was informing her that it had inadvertently disclosed her information--and that of 165,000 other Americans--to a group of criminals. What galls Rosen more, she says, is that all along, ChoicePoint itself “was profiting by collecting and selling confidential information about me without my knowledge or consent.”
ChoicePoint, which has $1 billion in annual revenues, is only one entity in a vast and secretive data industry that feeds on private information about you and millions of other Americans. Its inhabitants include corporate mastodons with access to millions of public records; swarms of private investigators, some of whom lie to obtain confidential information; and hundreds of companies selling background checks, profiles, and address lists, all to meet the surging demand from business, law enforcement, and, increasingly since 9/11, the federal government.
The data collectors say that they’re not prying but speeding the retrieval of public records for both consumers and law enforcement, allowing businesses to cut their risks for fraud and helping marketers to zero in on customers who really want their products. “More than two-thirds of what we do is regulated by state and/or federal law,” says Chuck Jones, a spokesman for ChoicePoint.
Federal privacy and data-security laws such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act do guard some categories of data, including information used to determine eligibility for credit or insurance. But a 2006 investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that such protections are limited and that Congress should require information resellers to safeguard all sensitive personal information.
Indeed, CR’s three-month investigation found that the practices of the data collectors can rob you of your privacy, threaten you with ID theft, and profile you as, say, a deadbeat or a security risk. Worse, there’s no way to find out what they are telling others about you. When our reporters requested their own records, they were told that they could not see everything that was routinely sold to businesses. The meager information they did receive was punctuated with errors.
How CU uses your data
Like many other publishers, Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, engages in database marketing and has established policies to protect customer information. CU rents and exchanges its mailing list and currently pays data brokers to enhance its customer database with supplemental data to assist in marketing and fund-raising campaigns. Information shared excludes Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, financial account numbers, and credit- and debit-card information.
CU publicizes its opt-out policy in each issue of Consumer Reports, describing how readers may request that their names not be released to other mailers. And it adheres to guidelines for the use of customer names set forth by the Direct Marketing Association. CU uses information gathered from subscribers who respond to its surveys, polls, or questionnaires only in aggregated form as source material for Consumer Reports articles and never for marketing purposes.
For complete Ratings and recommendations on appliances, cars & trucks, electronic gear, and much more, subscribe today and have access to all of Consumer Reports
I came across this great article from consumer reports which is really eye-opening.
October 2006
Your privacy for sale
CR Quick Take
Large data brokers have your numbers--Social Security, phone, and credit cards. They might also know about the drugs you take, what you buy, your political party, and your sexual orientation. When we investigated this secretive industry, we discovered:
• Data brokers are willing to sell even your most sensitive information to paying customers, some of them crooks.
• When CR staffers asked to see their own files, they received scant information. One report contained 31 errors.
• The federal government is a steady customer of the data collectors, but there’s no way to know what it collects or exactly how much it pays.
• Pretexters, who lie to get information about you and sell it to anybody, operate largely free of regulation.
Until Valentine’s Day weekend 2005, Elizabeth Rosen had never heard of ChoicePoint. But ChoicePoint, it turns out, knew plenty about her.
That’s when Rosen, a nurse, received a letter and found out that the Alpharetta, Ga., company had collected information about her. Among the sensitive items it had: her Social Security number, records of her insurance claims, her current and past addresses, and her employment history. Now ChoicePoint was informing her that it had inadvertently disclosed her information--and that of 165,000 other Americans--to a group of criminals. What galls Rosen more, she says, is that all along, ChoicePoint itself “was profiting by collecting and selling confidential information about me without my knowledge or consent.”
ChoicePoint, which has $1 billion in annual revenues, is only one entity in a vast and secretive data industry that feeds on private information about you and millions of other Americans. Its inhabitants include corporate mastodons with access to millions of public records; swarms of private investigators, some of whom lie to obtain confidential information; and hundreds of companies selling background checks, profiles, and address lists, all to meet the surging demand from business, law enforcement, and, increasingly since 9/11, the federal government.
The data collectors say that they’re not prying but speeding the retrieval of public records for both consumers and law enforcement, allowing businesses to cut their risks for fraud and helping marketers to zero in on customers who really want their products. “More than two-thirds of what we do is regulated by state and/or federal law,” says Chuck Jones, a spokesman for ChoicePoint.
Federal privacy and data-security laws such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act do guard some categories of data, including information used to determine eligibility for credit or insurance. But a 2006 investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that such protections are limited and that Congress should require information resellers to safeguard all sensitive personal information.
Indeed, CR’s three-month investigation found that the practices of the data collectors can rob you of your privacy, threaten you with ID theft, and profile you as, say, a deadbeat or a security risk. Worse, there’s no way to find out what they are telling others about you. When our reporters requested their own records, they were told that they could not see everything that was routinely sold to businesses. The meager information they did receive was punctuated with errors.
How CU uses your data
Like many other publishers, Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, engages in database marketing and has established policies to protect customer information. CU rents and exchanges its mailing list and currently pays data brokers to enhance its customer database with supplemental data to assist in marketing and fund-raising campaigns. Information shared excludes Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, financial account numbers, and credit- and debit-card information.
CU publicizes its opt-out policy in each issue of Consumer Reports, describing how readers may request that their names not be released to other mailers. And it adheres to guidelines for the use of customer names set forth by the Direct Marketing Association. CU uses information gathered from subscribers who respond to its surveys, polls, or questionnaires only in aggregated form as source material for Consumer Reports articles and never for marketing purposes.
For complete Ratings and recommendations on appliances, cars & trucks, electronic gear, and much more, subscribe today and have access to all of Consumer Reports
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