Almost everyone has heard of the phrase "Big Brother" when talking about the government keeping tabs on us. The thought frightens many, even some who don't own every season of the X-Files on DVD (but I don't know these people). So is it any better when the 'parents' behind 'brother' are private companies instead of the government? Not only no, but hell no. Here's why:
Joe Jones goes into a job interview and is told politely, but firmly, no thank you. He wonders at this since he's a model employee and his previous boss gave him glowing recommendations. Turns out that the company he was applying at checked up on Mr. Jones. They went to one of these data mining companies and said what do you have on Joe Jones. They said, looks like he's a drug addict. Now how would they know that? They tracked his online habits and found him pricing and purchasing hypodermic needles but no medicine. Further more his medical files say he doesn't need any kind of injection. Whew, close call there. Almost hired a druggie. But wait, is Joe a druggie? No. He buys extra hypos for his grandmother who is on a fixed income and has diabetes. He's not a druggie, he's a saint. Can this really happen? It already happens all the time.
Are there legitimate uses for this kind of stuff? I suppose if you wanted to screen your dates to make sure none were psycho stalkers (or to make sure that they were psycho stalkers if that's what you wanted) but where is the line and who draws it? Do you check just criminal history? Mental health? How about tax receipts and income statements? And who regulates what data can be stored? Where do you go to if
there's a mistake? And what's to stop this data from being misused?
If this were regulated in some way I might sleep a little better. But not only can you not correct any data they have on you, they don't have to tell you they have it.
“But wait,” you say, “let me get this straight. A company that I don't know can collect data on me without my permission, without my knowledge and then sell it without problem?” Yup. And it gets worse.
In 2001 America saw a tragic act of terrorism on it's own soil. This finally shocked many Americans into realizing that not only is America NOT the center of the solar system (gasp), but there are some people that actually hate us (and after we gave the world McDonald's, too). After our eyes opened a bit we scrambled to feel like we were protecting ourselves. In conjunction with some things like the so-called Patriot Act the government started looking at options. How can we see this coming next time? One company that collects information about people stepped up and volunteered to help the FBI step around our constitutional rights and established freedoms. You see, the FBI and law enforcement agencies can't legally open a file and investigate US citizens without reason. They can only open a file on you if you're being investigated for a crime. But what about crimes that have yet to
be committed? No, they can't just randomly check up on you to see whether or not you *might* break the law. So a third party said, “Hey, we have tons of info that we collected and we did it legally. Wanna see it?” Duh.
So not only do we have to worry about the spyware companies creating technology that is prime for identity theft, not only do they intrude into our lives to sell us crap, but then they turn around and tattle on us. It's bad enough that companies use this data to screen job applicants, but it's shocking to think that this unregulated and
personal information can fall into just about anyone's hands.
And it often does.
