#TheMarkup: "We caught companies making it harder to delete your personal data online"
https://themarkup.org/privacy/2025/08/12/we-caught-companies-making-it-harder-to-delete-your-data

#TheMarkup: "We caught companies making it harder to delete your personal data online"
https://themarkup.org/privacy/2025/08/12/we-caught-companies-making-it-harder-to-delete-your-data
#DataBrokers Face New Pressure for Hiding Opt-Out Pages From #Google
After reporters found dozens of firms hiding #privacy tools from #search results, US senator Maggie Hassan insists the companies explain their practices—and pledge to improve access to privacy controls.
#optout
https://www.wired.com/story/hassan-data-broker-opt-out-letter/
#security #privacy #SSN #DataBrokers
'National Public Data, a website infamous for its role in leaking millions of Social Security numbers last year, has returned with the ability to look up anyone's personal information. '
https://www.pcmag.com/news/site-behind-major-ssn-leak-returns-with-detailed-data-on-millions-how-to
#DataBrokers Are Hiding Their Opt-Out Pages From #GoogleSearch
Dozens of companies are hiding how you can delete your personal data, The #Markup and #CalMatters found.
#optout #privacy
https://www.wired.com/story/data-brokers-hiding-opt-out-pages-google-search/
What we call "#darkpatterns". The #DROP database scheduled to come online in 2026 will combat this for Californians. "Of 499 #databrokers registered with the state of California, The Markup and CalMatters found 35 instructing search engines to ignore pages with instructions on how consumers can remove their data' https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/08/companies-make-it-hard-to-delete-personal-data/
>>ICE’s use of these databases serves as a stark reminder that tools designed for legitimate purposes, such as detecting insurance fraud, can be quietly turned into instruments of surveillance. ICE’s misuse of medical claims data not only threatens undocumented migrants but also, by eroding trust in the public health system, endangers all Americans.<<
https://www.cato.org/commentary/why-ice-spying-us-citizens-medical-data#
#DataBrokers Are Ignoring #Privacy Law. We Deserve Better. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/data-brokers-are-ignoring-privacy-law-we-deserve-better
#DataBrokers Are Ignoring #Privacy Law. We Deserve Better.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/data-brokers-are-ignoring-privacy-law-we-deserve-better
Yet we still can't get decent data protection laws.
A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors
https://www.404media.co/a-startup-is-selling-data-hacked-from-peoples-computers-to-debt-collectors/
#DataBrokers are Selling Your Flight Information to #CBP and #ICE
#privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/data-brokers-are-selling-your-flight-information-cbp-and-ice
This isn’t drift. It’s a full-speed dive into #authoritarian control.
Trump’s #DOGE agency is fusing #IRS #ssa #medicaid #voting #immigration and arrest data into one #surveillance engine; built by Palantir, enforced by #ice approved by #scotus
They’re buying your location and search history from #databrokers
Encrypted? Doesn’t matter. Oversight? Gone.
You are the product. And the suspect.
https://prismreports.org/2025/07/10/surveillance-state-in-u-s-is-far-worse-than-you-imagined/
"In selling law enforcement agencies bulk access to such sensitive information, these airlines—through their data broker—are putting their own profits over travelers' privacy. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently detailed its own purchase of personal data from ARC. In the current climate, this can have a detrimental impact on people’s lives.
Movement unrestricted by governments is a hallmark of a free society. In our current moment, when the federal government is threatening legal consequences based on people’s national, religious, and political affiliations, having air travel in and out of the United States tracked by any ARC customer is a recipe for state retribution.
Sadly, data brokers are doing even broader harm to our privacy. Sensitive location data is harvested from smartphones and sold to cops, internet backbone data is sold to federal counterintelligence agencies, and utility databases containing phone, water, and electricity records are shared with ICE officers."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/data-brokers-are-selling-your-flight-information-cbp-and-ice
"“I’m here to tell you if you’ve ever been on a dating app that wanted your location, or if you ever granted a weather app permission to know where you are 24/7, there’s a good chance a detailed log of your precise movement patterns has been vacuumed up and saved in some data bank somewhere that tens of thousands of total strangers have access to,” writes Tau.
Unraveling the story of how these strangers—everyone from government intelligence agents and local law enforcement officers to private investigators and employees of ad tech companies—gained access to our personal information is the ambitious task Tau sets for himself, and he begins where you might expect: the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
At no other point in US history was the government’s appetite for data more voracious than in the days after the attacks, says Tau. It was a hunger that just so happened to coincide with the advent of new technologies, devices, and platforms that excelled at harvesting and serving up personal information that had zero legal privacy protections.
Over the course of 22 chapters, Tau gives readers a rare glimpse inside the shadowy industry, “built by corporate America and blessed by government lawyers,” that emerged in the years and decades following the 9/11 attacks. In the hands of a less skilled reporter, this labyrinthine world of shell companies, data vendors, and intelligence agencies could easily become overwhelming or incomprehensible. But Tau goes to great lengths to connect dots and plots, explaining how a perfect storm of business motivations, technological breakthroughs, government paranoia, and lax or nonexistent privacy laws combined to produce the “digital panopticon” we are all now living in."
#Surveillance #Privacy #DataProtection SurveillanceCapitalism #AdTech #DataBrokers
"There is no “cloud,” just someone else's computer—and when the cops come knocking on their door, these hosts need to be willing to stand up for privacy, and know how to do so to the fullest extent under the law. These legal limits are also important for users to know, not only to mitigate risks in their security plan when choosing where to share data, but to understand whether these hosts are going to bat for them. Taking action together, service hosts and users can curb law enforcement getting more data than they’re allowed, protecting not just themselves but targeted populations, present and future.
This is distinct from law enforcement’s methods of collecting public data, such as the information now being collected on student visa applicants. Cops may use social media monitoring tools and sock puppet accounts to collect what you share publicly, or even within “private” communities. Police may also obtain the contents of communication in other ways that do not require court authorization, such as monitoring network traffic passively to catch metadata and possibly using advanced tools to partially reveal encrypted information. They can even outright buy information from online data brokers. Unfortunately there are few restrictions or oversight for these practices—something EFF is fighting to change.
Below however is a general breakdown of the legal processes used by US law enforcement for accessing private data, and what categories of private data these processes can disclose. Because this is a generalized summary, it is neither exhaustive nor should be considered legal advice. Please seek legal help if you have specific data privacy and security needs."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/how-cops-can-get-your-private-online-data
Hacker verkauft Daten aus Notrufsystem an Bestatter
Die Notrufdaten sind Bestattern in Taiwan in Echtzeit zur Verfügung gestellt worden. Sie konnten damit frühzeitig an Einsatzorten auftauchen, um neue Kunden zu gewinnen.
#NichtDerPostillion #Datenhandel #DataBrokers
golem.de/news/kundenfang-am-unfallort-hacker-verkauft-daten-aus-notrufsystem-an-bestatter-2507-197666.html
@eff IMHO #DataBrokers should be illegal per very concept!
New Privacy Guides article
by me:
When talking about data privacy and LGBTQ+ experiences, it's inevitable to also discuss queer dating apps.
Many factors contribute in making queer people more likely to seek love and friendship online.
Unfortunately, dating apps are horrible for data privacy, and it's even worse for queer dating apps.
https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/06/24/queer-dating-apps-beware-who-you-trust/
Why Are Hundreds of #DataBrokers Not Registering with States?
Hundreds of data brokers have not registered with state consumer protection agencies. These findings come as more states are passing #DataBroker #transparency laws that require brokers to provide information about their business and, in some cases, give consumers an easy way to opt out.
#privacy #security
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/why-are-hundreds-data-brokers-not-registering-states
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has canceled plans to introduce new rules to ensure that data brokers obtain Americans’ consent before selling or sharing sensitive personal information, including financial data such as income, credit history and Social Security numbers.
Data brokers create extensive profiles on nearly every American, including sensitive data such as precise location history, political affiliations, and financial data - often without individuals’ knowledge or consent. This information is frequently resold for purposes ranging from marketing to law enforcement surveillance.
“Foreign and malign actors with access to these datasets could uncover information about high-level targets, such as military service members, that could be used for coercion, reputational damage, and blackmail,”.
https://www.wired.com/story/cfpb-quietly-kills-rule-to-shield-americans-from-data-brokers/ #Privacy #PPI #PersonalData #Databrokers #CFPB #ConsumerProtection #DataPrivacy
#Police and other public officials have special protections from #DataBrokers, and West Virginia officers sue Whitepages over unlawful info disclosure. (2024)
https://dltj.org/article/issue-117-local-government-surveillance#wv