Big data is one of the most popular terms used by businesses and consumers alike. Individuals have begun to understand exactly how their personal data is being used, but many still don’t understand the hidden dangers in everyday technology. Items like smartphones, location services, smart TVs, and speech programs store user data without their knowledge.  Here are some of the most common yet hidden privacy dangers facing us today.

The 5 Most Common Hidden Privacy Dangers

Web Browsers and Apps

Before smart phones existed, “apps” were nonexistent. Anything accessed now through an app, was before accessed through an internet browser.  The web browser on a smart phone is what is referred to in the cyber security industry as “sandboxed,” meaning it cannot access general data on the system or control hardware.  An installed app however can be coded to do anything it wants to gain access to any hardware the user has control of.  Take the History Channel, for example, if a user accesses the site from a laptop, they can access the entire website without a problem.  However, if accessed through a web browser on a smartphones, the user is promoted to “download the app.” Many times, if you do not download the app, the website will disable you from viewing or using it, forcing you to download the app and giving up your personal information in the process. After downloading the app, it asks for permission to access the camera and the microphone on your device.  This is because the app is storing personal information of its users outside of what happens within the History Channel app you just downloaded.

Shopping & Savings Cards

Are these just great programs to help you save a little money at various stores? What is in it for the business offering these ‘savings’?  There are some little- known privacy danger inherent in the “frequent shopper” or savings cards offered by many grocery stores and retailers.  These organizations are saving, analyzing, and sharing information on what you buy, when you buy it, and predicting future sales.  The savings passed on to the consumer are far less than the amount of money these companies are making by selling the information to outside resources regarding your purchasing history and habits.  Specifically, Kroger and Ingles make over 200% more profit from the data that they sell than the savings that the consumer experiences.  The best way to protect oneself from the sharing of personal information, is to limit the number of programs you participate in.

Speech Software & Smart TVs

Speech software such as Cortana, Alexa, and Siri have become increasingly popular in the past few years. However, if you are running these services in your home or office, then you have an active listening device running at all times.  Essentially, you are “bugged.”  These services are running, tapping and sending your audio steams to remote servers daily.  Many fail to realize that the cameras on these devices can be turned on without the light being activated. Meaning, your smart TV can be watching you even when you aren’t watching it. All of this can be done without downloading any related software because the software is already built-in.  Some smart TV’s will not turn on if the camera is covered with tape, or if the microphone has been disabled.  If you’re living in the United States and utilizing a smart TV, it’s likely monitoring and watching you.

Social Media

Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Instagram are all social media services that are provided to individuals for “free,” but have you ever wondered what the real cost might be?  It is often said that if you don’t have to PAY for the service, then you probably ARE the service.  The hidden cost for utilizing these social media sites is the forfeit of personal information for the social media sites to sell and thus profit from.  In fact, Google and Yahoo can actually read their customers personal email.  Some individuals might say they don’t mind because they have “nothing to hide,” but wouldn’t you be wary of publicly posting your login credentials not knowing who might have access? Giving these large organizations rights to your private messages, can be interpreted as pretty much the same thing.  After all, isn’t your personal email just that – personal? Another unknown fact about Facebook is that they can create “ghost profiles” using facial recognition for people who do not have an account, but appear in someone else’s photos. During the Dakota Pipeline Protests, Facebook sold the private chat messages of its users who were discussing the matter to the FBI and local police, as well as private security companies who further reported inside information directly to the pipeline company.  Because the information was “for sale,” the police didn’t need a warrant to obtain confidential information- they simply needed to buy it.  This is just one of the many ways that social media affects those who don’t realize the implications.

Geo-Location

Geo-Location can be convenient, especially when you’re lost or need GPS services.  However, many fail to realize that any information surrounding your location is stored and archived, and then often times sold to a 3^rd party who wants to use that information for a wide variety of reasons.  For example, are you aware that data is often collected during your shopping experiences? A variety of stores will purchase location information to determine how long a customer browsed in a particular aisle, so that they can further market to those customers in the future- promoting similar products.  The information may seem harmless, but would you feel that same way if you saw a physical person following you around collecting the same information?

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Equifax, one of the largest credit reporting agencies, revealed on Thursday that it was hacked back in May, exposing the personal data of up to 143 million people. The data accessed by hackers contains extremely sensitive information like social security numbers, birth data, consumer’s names, driver’s license numbers and credit card numbers.

This breach is a monumental failure of cybersecurity, which raises many pressing privacy concerns. However, beyond those issues, it also illustrates a fundamental problem of the data economy as a whole: databanks like Equifax are too big.

Consumer credit agencies like Equifax are part of the multi-billion dollar data broker industry, which is based on collecting, analyzing, and selling thousands of data points about individual people. They paint a detailed picture of a person’s life and that profile is used to make decisions with direct impacts on, as I have written elsewhere, “many facets of our lives, from obtaining a loan to finding a job to renting a home.” As a company adds to its hoard of data, the value grows exponentially; so, the imperative for data brokers is to continuously accumulateas much data as possible.

As epic as Equifax’s hack was, things can get a lot worse. The credit reporting agencies Experian and TransUnion are data giants on par with Equifax and there are thousands of other data brokers that also possess large databanks. Data breaches like this one are not bugs, but rather features of a system that centralizes immense amounts of valuable personal data in one place.

The vaults of these databanks are impossible to secure, in large part, because the wealth of information they hold is a beacon for hackers. Even the most impenetrable cybersecurity will eventually fail under the pressure of dogged hackers probing for weaknesses to exploit. Better cybersecurity is important, but it is not a solution. It only postpones catastrophic failure.

Indeed, after the hack of infidelity website Ashley Madison in 2015, security experts warned of an event exactly like the Equifax hack – one that would make Ashley Madison “look like a footnote by comparison”. Rather than focus on cybersecurity, we need to ask critical questions about the very structure and operation of the data economy.

No longer can these companies be allowed to exist in the shadows quietly sucking up alarming amounts of data about people. Data is often called the “new oil” and a new “kind of capital” because it generates huge profits for a fast-growing industry. Rather than simply laugh off these metaphors, we should take a cue from them and treat Big Data with the same wariness we direct toward Big Oil and Big Finance.

In terms of power and wealth, the data capitalists are already usurping the oil barons and hedge fund managers, as Olivia Solon and Sabrina Siddiqui report. “It used to be banks, but now it is tech giants that dominate the US lobbying industry.”

It is time we treat Big Data with the skepticism, vigilance, and oversight it deserves. In 2014, the Federal Trade Commission released a report calling for more transparency and accountability in the data broker industry. If anything, the Equifax hack shows that this tepid approach does not go far enough. It is hard to see how transparency and accountability would have prevented the hackers’ heist.

The problem is that companies like Equifax are able to accumulate – essentially, without limit – as much sensitive, personal data as they can get their hands on. There is an urgent need for strict regulations on what types of data companies can collect and how much data a company can possess, both in aggregate and about individuals.

At the very least, this will lessen the severity and size of (inevitable) data breaches. It could also go a long way towards preventing the invasive and discriminatory uses of data – like “digital redlining” – that endemic in the data broker industry.

Without putting hard limits on the data capitalists who extract and exploit our personal information, they will continue to reap the benefit while we bear the risks.

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