A Random Thought On Privacy
I choose to live my life privately, and try earnestly to become more private. The irony of publishing a blog and website about my life does not go unnoticed!
A Reason for Privacy
If you go into just about any store, they ask for your phone number, or rewards card. They combine that identifier with your purchase data, facial recognition, and Bluetooth/wireless signals we almost always emanate from our cell phones. They track you around the store, where you stop at what, on what shelf, and this data is logged. Middle aged white guy in sporting goods? Are you looking at track shoes or hunting knives? What day is it? Time, weather, location, economy, type of phone, etc. What exactly did you buy and in what quantity? All valuable data points. I use cash whenever possible.
Retailers gather this data in the guise of customer service. Retailers are all to eager to give you coupons, discounts, points, and more; their only requirement is for you to surrender your personal information. In the aggregate, your data is priceless, or at least worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It seems so innocuous, right?
Why should we use device and data encryption, extreme privacy techniques, camouflage, and other so-called “deceptive practices”? Because the retailer’s don’t have the right to know!
Credit Reports
Let me ask you this: When did you consent, or otherwise “OPT IN” to your credit data being aggregated by Equifax, Experion, Transunion and the like? What gives these companies the right to gather this private information and then sell it? Who holds these companies accountable when they leak your personal information? Remember Equifax data breach? Veteran’s Administration? OPM? Department of Defense?
With the correct credentials you can pay for access to database companies that buy credit data, and other data from businesses and governments. It’s a way for companies and local jurisdictions to make more money. Are you a Mayor of a city of 50,000 people? You have a lot of you town’s data: water department, police department, voter registration, property details, business license and permits, etc. This data is valuable and often sold to data brokers, at sometimes more than $1 per record. This is NORMAL now, and it happened without anyone’s awareness or consent.
Your data is being gathered and sold without your knowledge, consent, or approval. For this reason, I choose to live as privately as possible, without breaking the law. It’s just none of anyone’s damn business where I shop, what I buy, and all the other meta data points gathered about me along the way. TikTok is in the news headlines the app gathers data so much so, that governments are considering banning the app on their issued devices.
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