Study shows how easy and inexpensive it is to purchase personal information about active military personnel. Everything is perfectly legal, and the data is sometimes very private.
You know the data brokers ? These are private companies whose job is to collect personal information about everyone and then sell it to whoever requests it. For this, they are based on the publicly accessible data most often (Internet browsing, social networks, online shopping sites, etc.), but also make deductions based on what they have on you. That’s scary enough, but it can be even more so.
Research conducted by Duke University in the United States, North Carolina, shows that you can buy information concerning active military personnel, their families or veterans with a few cents in your pocket. In one year, researchers contacted 12 data brokerage companies and obtained those of tens of thousands of members of the armed forces. The price ? Between 10 and 30 euro cents per person. With this, you offer yourself the name, postal address, email, age, possible political or religious affiliations, health information, hobbies, income or even the presence or not of children within the hearth.
Data Brokers Sell Very Private Military Information Without Asking Questions
When we see what it is possible to buy, we understand why countries prohibit the sale of certain data. But the research teams went even further. They pretended to be foreign buyerswith a IP address locating them in Singapore and one .asia domain name. Normally, companies should have at least verified their identity. Absolutely not. They sold their product like anyone else.
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As Hayley Barton, one of the co-authors of the study, points out: “[…] buying this data was perfectly legal, and it was perfectly legal for brokers to sell it. Anyone with an email address can do exactly the same thing”. The sector brings in approximately 400 billion dollars per year Currently.
Source: Gizmodo