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Senior Citizen Alerts
Your Personal Data is Being Sold by Data Brokers and
Often Incorrect
Consumer Reports finds disasters
results, suggests safe-guards
 September 1, 2006 - A three-month investigation by
Consumer Reports concluded that current federal laws do not adequately
safeguard American's sensitive information, which is often collected and
sold by data brokers, with the federal government being the biggest
customer. The practices of commercial data brokers can rob consumers of
their privacy, threaten them with identity theft and profile them as
dead beats or security risks, according to a report in CRs October
issue. CR also has some suggestions on how to better protect your
personal information.
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Senior Citizen Alerts |
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The information about you being sold by these
brokers can include Social Security numbers, phone numbers, credit card
numbers, information about an individual's prescription medication,
shopping habits, political affiliations and sexual orientations.
Among the most troublesome findings of CR's
investigation: There is no way an individual can find out exactly what
data collectors are telling others; and the accuracy of that data is
rarely verified. When CR staffers asked to see their own files, they
received scant information. One report contained more than 31 errors.
CR's investigation reveals the growth of the
Internet has spawned data brokers that use deceptive practices to obtain
sensitive and personal information about people and sells it to
virtually anyone, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Choice Point, LexisNexis and Acxiom are among the
largest of the horde of data brokers that generate billions of dollars
in revenue by selling sensitive and personal information about millions
of Americans to paying customers, sometimes including crooks looking to
cash in.
Personal, sensitive information can be obtained
from several sources, most commonly are public records. Some data
collectors hire researchers to visit courthouses and county clerks'
offices to retrieve information from paper records.
However, a growing number of state and local
governments are posting personal records online, making information
gathering easier and increasing the potential for abuse. In addition,
consumers themselves supply tons of data, often unwittingly, because
information about purchases, donations, and memberships is now widely
shared.
In fact, most list creation comes from the
activities of consumers like buying from catalogues, ordering magazines,
joining associations or filling out warranty cards.
A steady customer for this personal data, the
federal government often enlists the services of data brokers, but there
is no way to know exactly what it collects or exactly how much it pays.
Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice has allowed unrelated bits of
personal data to be pieced together to target American citizens as
potential threats who merit surveillance or investigation.
In fiscal 2005, the departments of Justice,
Homeland Security, and State, and the Social Security Administration
spent $30 million on data-broker contracts, according to the U.S
Government Accountability Office (GAO). Finding out what the government
is buying has proven impossible.
While consumers have little or no control over much
of the data collection and sharing that occurs, they can limit the
amount of information circulating about them. Checking the accuracy of
this information will also help spot signs of ID theft and fraud. To do
so, consumers can take the following precautions:
● Opt out of telemarketing, unwanted
solicitations and the sale of your information to others.
> Enroll in the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call
registry by going to
http://www.donotcall.gov
or by calling 888-382-1222.
> Ask financial institutions, retailers and Web sites not
to share your information with other nonaffiliated companies.
> Contact the Direct Marketing Association at
http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html ; for
unsolicited email,
http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumers/optoutform_emps.shtml .
> Also, The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse lists data
brokers that offer limited opt-out policies at
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/infobrokers.htm .
● Don't fill out surveys on warranty cards. Just
provide your name, address, and necessary product information, and your
warranty will be honored. Be careful with direct-mail surveys that don't
come from companies with which you already do business.
● Don't provide sensitive information on the
phone, through the mail, or over the Internet unless you've initiated
the contact or you're sure that it is from an organization you trust. If
in doubt, contact the organization.
● Order your free annual report from each of the
major nationwide credit-reporting companies once every 12 months at
http://www.annualcreditreport.com
.
● Request your files from the major databrokers:
ChoicePoint at
http://www.choicetrust.com
LexisNexis at
http://www.lexisnexis.com/terms/privacy/data/obtain.asp . You
can call Acxiom at 877-774-2094 or send email to
referencereport@acxiom.com.
● Get medical information. If you've applied for
individual health- or life insurance policies within the past seven
years, the MIB Group keeps data that insurers use to help determine your
rates. Get a report by calling MIB toll-free at 866-692-6901.
For more information, the complete report on the
practices of data brokers is available in the October issue of Consumer
Reports, on newsstands September 5, or by visiting
http://www.ConsumerReports.org.
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