LexisNexis and ChoicePoint are two of the largest data-brokers in the world. They’re only product is information about you which they buy and sell with little to no regulation of any kind. I have always wondered what kind of information they keep about us, and now I know. In the profile I ordered from them, I found not only several pieces of my personal information, but descriptions of other kinds of information that they collect. Here is a summary:

Information they Had

• Full first, middle, and last name
• Wife first, middle, and last name
• Address history with dates and locations
• Social Security Number
• Full date of birth
• Driver’s License Number
• Vehicle VIN
• Insurance history including companies, policy details, dates of coverage, accidents, claims filed, etc.

Information they Collect, but Didn’t Have For Me

• Auto and property insurance history
• Pre-employment background report including “personal credit information” and state driving record.
• An Esteem® report which lists admitted or convicted cases of theft while visiting or working at a retail company (used by retailers for hiring).
• A ScreenNow® report which displays a ChoicePoint national criminal records search of your name and personal information (used for hiring and volunteer work).
• A Resident Data® history that includes personal credit information and a criminal record search (used for rental applications).
• A Resident Data® eviction report used for resident screening.
• FAA Aircraft Registrations
• Uniform Commercial Code filings (when securing a loan with collateral).
• Bankruptcies, Liens, and Judgments
• Professional Licenses
• Pilot Licenses
• Marine Radio Licenses
• Controlled Substance Licenses (for physicians, dentists, pharmacies).
• Firearms and Explosives Licenses
• Business Affiliations (for officers or principals of an incorporated Company).
• Significant Shareholders Search Results – If your name and address appear at the top of a corporation record.

And the most exciting part of all of this is that you never asked to be part of their profiles, they just take it. Neat huh?

A completely horrifying service that some people have actually signed up for.

When you first hear about Blippy, the purchase-sharing website, you would think that no one in the whole world would be crazy enough to sign up. You’d be wrong.

Blippy is a service where you can share your purchases on most of the major web stores in real time (similar to Twitter). ALF just got a movie at Netflix (Full Metal Jacket… classic!). Jessestay just bought something at iTunes for 2.99 ( Epitaph One, by Dollhouse). On and on the purchases go. As they scroll by, I learn more about where the people live, what kinds of things they like, and what kinds of secrets they have. One user just purchased an iPhone app to find, let’s say, non-traditional bars in his city.

Believe it or not, the complete transparency of your purchasing habits is the least of your worries on Blippy. This site, supposedly run by four average sounding college graduates, promises good security and protection of your information, but history shows that even major banks and government agencies are hard pressed to keep data safe. Especially if they’re a big target!

So what makes Blippy a big target? Well, you may have heard my advice not too long ago to never give away your e-mail address password to these new sites like Facebook and Twitter that use your address book to add friends automatically. Blippy does the same thing, but for your web stores AND your bank accounts too!

In case you missed it, let me say it again more clearly: Blippy gets their information of your purchases by logging into your iTunes, Netflix, or eBay accounts and constantly monitoring them for new purchases. And not just web stores, but banks and credit cards too. Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, Paypal, and American Express are just some of the ones they’re set up for currently. All you have to do is provide all your usernames and passwords for each service you want to share your purchases for with Blippy.

You don’t have to be a privacy nut like me to find that prospect completely horrifying.

It looks like a Facebook employee decided to come clean about Facebook's horrid data protection practices

Graphic from HERE

As justification for the complete jerk-move Facebook recently made that forced many people's private information into the public against their will (his included), Mark Zuckerberg claimed publicly that privacy is no longer the social norm:

I think that people can agree they don't like things like getting embarrassed, getting fired, or getting robbed by the things found in their Facebook page (each of which happened). Sadly, people experiment with getting involved with the Internet via Facebook and it takes something drastic for them to learn that they should be more careful about what they share.

Source:Guardian.co.uk

EPIC has been fighting what they call Whole Body Imaging for a while now, but this is an interesting new twist. I never thought about this before, but taking a nude scan of a minor is a violation of child pornography laws.

So if this is really the case, and the TSA doesn't get some kind of exception they will be barred from scanning anyone under 18 at which point the terrorists get an advantage by sending through young recruits (or ones young enough to plausibly lie about it).

The really sad thing about all this is that the technology is very good. It's less invasive than a strip search or pat down and it's extremely fast and easy for the traveler. If it were possible to trust that the TSA could keep the images from being stored and distributed, maybe even I could support it.

Betcha never meant for that to be public

So Facebook is not exactly known for protecting people's privacy. Besides many grievous displays of poor security, they have only added decent privacy controls over time none of which matter because you can get to the pictures anyway and every installed Facebook app can get all your data too.

All that aside, assume that setting your privacy controls is still better than not setting them. Facebook pulled a real jerk move recently when it required all users when they first logged in for the day to make a decision about their privacy settings. You had to click to keep your current settings, but if you didn't, it would open your profile up using the new default settings.

Though it doesn't probably change anything in the long run, it's quite satisfying to know that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, fell prey to his own tactic.

In a bit of very interesting timing, Zuckerberg’s photos have been made public to the entire internet, mostly through a post from gossip blog Gawker, after Kashmir Hill at True/Slant discovered and reported that Zuckerberg was sharing photos with a wide circle — friends of friends — and his event calendar with everyone.

Serves him right.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment about whether Zuckerberg’s changes to his privacy settings were deliberate, leadership-by-example-style actions. But in a status update on his profile (pictured above), Zuckerberg says he sets most of his content open and “didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear ”

Sure… He claims that he didn't mind that they were public and that he did it on purpose. Of course it wasn't proof positive that the settings changes are confusing and designed to nudge people out of their privacy into the public eye. Still, some would claim foul.

But why did Zuck suddenly decide to be less private than two months ago, when his settings were uber-private? You couldn’t even friend him before, and you certainly couldn’t see him shirtless..

The fact that Zuck drastically reduced his privacy settings makes me think the Facebook CEO did this accidentally, and now doesn’t want to change back for fear of the resulting PR disaster.

I wonder if Zuckerberg is regretting this move now. He can't go back towards privacy without making it seem that he's a hypocrite. Still, you have to wonder if he's going to start posting less information to his event calendar and photo albums than before since it's been forced for PR reasons to remain public.

Better privacy controls? Yes please!

For as long as Google has existed, it has been and continues to be my favorite search engine by far. I like the company, their services, and just about everything about them except for one thing: abysmal privacy policies.

Though Google has legitimate use for storing search records to see how long it takes someone to find what they're looking for, there's no need to store an IP address along with the search records. Any unique identifier would work. There's certainly no reason why Google should store your records for 18 months, let alone 18 minutes.

To be fair, sometimes they get things right like when they strongly resisted government invasion of search records, but the information is there and that creates a risk.

While that issue is still in the air, Google recently made another step in the right direction with their Google Dashboard feature. When logged into any Google service, you can go to http://www.google.com/dashboard to see a consolidated listing of everything Google knows about you. Documents, chat records, search history, etc.

The service gives you single-page access to the privacy controls for every service that you're using with Google. This not only makes what they have on you more transparent, but easier to manage. Granted, they have more work to do in giving you control over what's stored and what isn't, you can at least delete some of the data. For instance, if you've made searches in the past that list your home address or medical information and you don't want Google to have that on file, you can delete it.

Of course, that doesn't get rid of every copy that exists, but it at leasts takes it out of their current records and makes it less likely to get swooped up by government snooping or any future data breaches that Google might suffer. All in all, a very good step in the right direction so make sure to check it out if you use Google services.

Track your kids in real-time online with GPS

Here's a tool for you ultra-paranoid: a GPS watch you can make your kids wear.

Parents can see the location of their child on Google maps by clicking 'where r you' on a secure website or texting 'wru' to a special number. Safe zones can also be programmed with parents being alerted if their child strays outside this zone.

The watch, which is designed in bright colours to appeal to children, can be tightly fastened to a child's wrist and sends an alert if forcibly removed.

Two things to keep in mind before doing this:

1. If you tag kids with monitoring devices, we will be raising a generation of people who don't see a problem with being tagged and tracked. This sets a very dangerous precedent for the future if we are to retain our personal liberties.
2. The company that supplies the information also gets to see where your kid is which creates a new set of problems. Now if someone hacks that company, they have a menu of kids to choose from. Also, since your kid is usually with you at a young age, you're not allowing yourself to be tracked as well. What does the company do with all that data? Would they possibly share or sell it? Could they lose it in a data breach?

I think that this watch could be very useful for high-profile kids like the President's or similar, but for regular kids, proper parenting might be a better defense. After all, it worked for all of us.

Here's another example of how someone's Facebook profile was used against them (First example here).

"If you are alleging that, as a result of an accident, you have not been able to enjoy life the same way and there is a photo taken after the accident showing you skiing or exercising … that could be relevant," the civil litigation and intellectual property lawyer said in an interview yesterday.

Well duh. If there are cases where people's personal diaries have been subpoenaed, I guarantee you an online record like Facebook is fair game.

Whether or not the officer in question really did use excessive force, the main point here is that the things you write about online can come back to haunt you in the most unexpected ways.

Officer Ettienne said he is now being careful to mask his identity on the Web and that he has curbed his tongue because of the acquittal. "I feel it's partially my fault, he said. It paints a picture of a person who could be overly aggressive. You put that together, it's reasonable doubt in anybody's mind."

Even your "private" Facebook or Myspace account isn't so private under the force of a subpoena.