Abine

Your medical records and health data are usually protected. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA , there are strict regulations about how your health information should be handled, and who can access it. Despite this, data broker sites and marketers know more than you would think about your medical history, often using targeted marketing that seems too accurate to not have your medical records on hand. From apps to internet searches, online tests to your wearable health device, your information is tracked and used for marketing. Online Depression Tests Share Your Answers You probably expect your movements across the internet to be tracked by the likes of Google and Facebook, using “cookies” as identifiers. You would assume, however, that health information would be protected against this. Instead, Privacy International found that online depression tests on popular mental health websites were sharing the answers with third parties. ...

Credit cards make buying anything from groceries to electronics easy, whether it’s online or in-person. You might assume that what you purchased, for how much, and where is information known only to you and your bank or credit card lender. Unfortunately, your information gets shared much more widely than that.  Who Gets Your Info? Obviously, your credit card provider gets information about your purchase. This could be a bank, or it could be a retailer such as Target or Amazon. When Washington Post tech writer Geoffrey A. Fowler bought a banana at Target with this Amazon credit card, he found that the information was also shared with marketers , Google, hedge funds, and possibly more. Mobile wallets and financial apps can capture and use your data. If you slide your card through a point-of-sale machine, such as a Square device, they also receive your information. What Are They Doing with Your Info? Why do they want all of this info? What are they doing with ...

There’s something to be said for fighting fire with fire, especially when you don’t have any other choice. In this case, the fire being fought is the compromising of your personal information on the internet. Of course, there’s a (sort of) surefire way to ensure that your private information isn’t tracked, collected, bought, sold, and otherwise aggregated and traded online: Not going on the internet. Of course, that’s not feasible for most people. That’s where fire to fight fire becomes necessary: Using web services and information on the internet against the internet sites that are collecting and trading your private information. These strategies range from passive protection to learning how to remove personal information from Google to going in and opting out of the data broker sites. Here are some of the best web services to ensure that your (often very ) private information remains private. Have I Been Pwned? Email is one of the primary ways in which personal inf...

It’s hard to describe to members of the pre-internet generation how different life was before the World Wide Web changed everything. The ease of use and ubiquity of search engines alone represents an indescribable paradigm shift from a time when information on virtually anything you wanted to know about was at your fingertips.  Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the brave, relatively new world of information access has a downside. One of the biggest drawbacks of the information age is that it tends not to be picky about the information that’s shared, including information about you. And once shared, it’s hard to remove personal information from Google that’s aggregated by data brokers and tracked by search engines. Which brings us to the hateful world of “doxxing.” What Is Doxxing? There’s a common warning given to those interacting with strangers on the internet on social media, chat sites, dating sites, and the like: “Be careful, they could be anyone!” Th...

At the end of May, Vermont became the first state in the U.S. to create and pass legislation that regulates data brokers and the information they fence. The law seeks to provide consumers with an extra level of protection while initiating accountability for a nearly unregulated industry. Designed to target massive data brokers like Spokeo, White Pages, and Been Verified, who have previously functioned under an umbrella of little to no oversight. While there are ways to institute your removal from Whitepages and the information they store it is by no means a simple step. This legislation will force data brokers to: register with the state comply with new rules inform consumers on the data they collect provide clear instructions for opting out immediately notify authorities when a breach occurs (including the number of consumers affected) be held accountable for fraud by the state itself The law defines a data broker “as a bus...

How much is someone’s privacy worth? In some cases, it is literally worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The New York Times reported in February 2018 that a woman in New Hampshire had won a $560 million Powerball jackpot. However, lottery officials would not give her the money because she wished to keep her identity anonymous. That might seem excessively cautious at first, but consider this: Even without giving her name away, the woman—known only as “Jane Doe”—got flooded with offers from people saying they would claim the winnings on her behalf (for a price, of course). Imagine how many vultures and nuts would come out if her name were made public!   From unwanted marketing messages to identity thieves, average citizens face their own struggles regarding personal information on the internet. Here are some ways that people can protect their privacy and good names online, including listing removal from Whitepages and other sites. Remove Personal Info ...

After hundreds of millions of people were affected by the Cambridge Analytica data fiasco, many find that their personal information is no longer private. Unlike the physical phone books of the past, WhitePages and other websites like Spokeo and Intelius collect personal information available on the internet without permission. Some websites even sell this information to individuals and companies who want phone numbers, email addresses, or physical addresses. Because the information is technically public, this creates a complicated and confusing situation. How are they gathering this information? Is information removal from WhitePages possible without deleting social media accounts? Who is looking at your private information without your knowledge or control? How Does Whitepages.com Gather Information? Phone and utility companies are a source for WhitePages to retrieve contact information attached to personal addresses and phone numbers. Other sources include social...