Brokers Use ‘Billions’ of Data Points to Profile Americans
May 27th, 2014Via: Washington Post:
Data brokers that quietly gather billions of pieces of data on Americans should be required to operate more openly, so that those categorized as “financially challenged” or possibly suffering from serious medical conditions have the ability to check and challenge those characterizations, a federal report said Tuesday.
The data broker industry, which is lightly regulated, develops profiles of hundreds of millions of people using online and offline sources, such as magazine subscriptions, visits to Web sites, posting on social networking services and purchase histories, the Federal Trade Commission reported. The information sold to marketers can include race, income and homeownership.
Categories used to label consumers include “Bible Lifestyle,” “Smoker in Household” and “New Age/Organic Lifestyle,” the report said. One category, called “Rural Everlasting,” describes people of retirement age who have “low educational attainment and low net worths.”
FTC officials, who based their report on documents gathered by issuing subpoenas to nine data brokers in December 2012, expressed concern about how the data is collected, how it’s used and the potential for making errors that are kept secret from the consumers themselves.
