Data Brokers: The Dark Industry of Selling Your Identity for Profit.

things have changed you see something you like DoubleTap you see something you dislike tweet about it you're in a relationship update your relationship status on a browser news do it online want to find out your credit score do it online with a trusted agency wanna trade stocks use an app interested in buying some new clothes do some online shopping wanna track your calories use an app having health problems googling having relationship problems google it thinking of going outside take your phone with you what could possibly go wrong the deaths of this industry the the really

darkest corners have yet to be exposed to any light whatsoever every location that you visit physically can be recorded this valuable data is now a commodity that is traded amongst a handful here's how it works your name your age your height your weight where you live where you work your family your friends your likes your dislikes your phone number your email your health conditions your buying habits your credit score your political beliefs your religious beliefs who you texts these are all examples of data points little bits of information and those little bits of information are

very valuable things why I hear you ask and valuable to who well advertisers would be a good start with a large amount of data an advertiser would know exactly who they should target and how they should target in order to make you buy well thank goodness they don't have access to your data then right wrong they do have access to your data and it's not your data anymore welcome to the world of data brokers a two hundred billion dollar industry based on selling your personal information to other companies right now you're probably imagining some tech

giants like Google or Facebook but that's not who I'm talking about as far as we know those companies don't sell your data no I'm talking about the others I'm talking about more than 4,000 companies in the US alone faceless companies companies that you've probably never heard of companies that are operating in the shadows with very few rules gathering all your personal data without you knowing information about your health your buying habits the restaurants reach out the supermarket's that you buy from then negotiating that very data with other companies for a hefty profit in the millions

all behind your back I don't know about you guys but I want a piece of that pipe if we're gonna start profiting off people's information we're gonna have to start collecting that data it sounds quite difficult doesn't it but it's a lot easier than you would think nowadays people give out their information willingly and without realizing that this data can be extracted and sold begin with public information things are you can find on someone's social media pages there is nothing to hack people were gonna provide their own pictures their own information the pages that they

liked the places that they visited relationship statuses hobbies friends lists look at property records and Land Registry court records birth certificates voter registration information bankruptcy records all of these things can be publicly accessed Avastin or enough data now we're gonna need more than that so go ahead and find companies who are willing to sell their customers data yep your favorite retail store that offered you those loyalty cards they've got all the information of what you've been purchasing when you've been purchasing it and how often you've been purchasing and guess what it's all up for sale

retailers are finding out that they have a secondary source of income which is that the data about our customers is probably just about as valuable maybe and more so than the actual product or service that they're selling to the individual go ahead and buy data from vehicle licensing agencies the ones that have your name address and other personal information or selling drivers personal information create free websites apps and other services that are designed to look ordinary behide their actual intention what web visitors don't realize is that take five is real business is collecting and selling

the information put trackers on these websites and apps that allow you to see things like it uses location and their contact list those cookies that you see on websites they have a sweet name don't they and you probably have no idea what they do but a lot of these cookies are tracking your online behavior the websites you visited the news that you've read the online purchases that you've made this is an entire list of vendors which a website is willing to hand out your information to but is it even legal you're asking of course it

is these people have agreed to handing over their information they're the ones who clicked accept and agree on the website pop ups which requested the use of their personal data they're the ones who left their social media pages public they're the ones who like those Facebook pages or posted about their thoughts and interests these are new times were living in remember and although these people don't know what they've actually been signing up for we've still got their digital signature any information you get as much information as you can get all of these data points are

little pieces of gold and the more data that you collect the better set you're going to be for the next stage of this process easy data isn't just random bits of information what data is truly at its core is human behavior and with the data that you've gathered as a broker it's time to start making your product all this data needs to be sorted aggregated from all these people that we've taken data from we need to start creating profiles at the heart of this industry we don't care whether a person likes this brand or that

brand or whether they prefer baseball or basketball whether they shop at Walmart Morrison's what we're looking for is patterns and with all this data that we've gathered we can start to identify patterns and how you behave and what your overall personality is like by looking at just a few of your likes on Facebook we can accurately predict what your political affiliations are by looking at just your purchase history we can guess how old you are whether you're looking to lose weight and whether you're a parent by looking at for frequent locations we can determine where

you live where you work what restaurants you like to visit the most whose houses you visit the most by looking at your credit score we can assess what level of income you're at and how much debt you're in by looking at your contact list we can determine who your closest friends are how often you call them and whether or not you've fallen out with them based on the frequency of those calls by looking at your internet history we can determine any health-related concerns you have your religious affiliations what your interests are whether you're planning to

go abroad or not what you're thinking about purchasing all of these predictions allow us to create a profile for each individual on two sets profile they can detail exactly who you are as a person how you think and how likely you are to behave that is our product a well wrapped package filled with an individual's behavioral patterns once we've packaged all this data into profiles audiences list it's time to start selling but who do you sell this information to you're probably wondering and the answer is damn near close to whoever wants it right now your

main customers are going to be marketing companies if we had a list of people who are health conscious which is something you can determine by a person's buying decision then there are a handful of companies that will want to get their hands on that list Jim's personal trainers health based restaurants food subscription boxes which are based around healthy eating online programs for fitness etc etc those people would love to find out who's interested in getting fit because the more targeted and advertisers campaign is the more return they can see on their advertising spend and that's

where you come in and sell them those lists of people that fit the bill but is that really where it stops of course you know do you know what else though if profiles can determine about you they can determine the riskiness of your lifestyle and that is something insurance companies would love to get their hands on recently purchased a motorcycle then get ready for that information to be flagged up by a health insurance company and for you to begin paying higher premiums for that health insurance banks would also love to get their hands on your

information from your search history they can see whether you have a history of credit card purchases or luxury items and from there they can determine whether to give you higher or lower interest rates on any loans that you take out what about people search websites websites there's store personal information about people with which for a fee you can access that information they'd love to gather data on a person's name address family members and whatnot and what about governments governments would love to know your exact location especially if you're a person of interest to them or

what about other data brokers yeah data brokers sell to other data brokers it's not as clear cut as scraping data and selling it off to other this entire industry is a web of data brokers selling to other data brokers who sell to companies that sell to other data brokers with prices marked up based on the information that these data brokers are selling right now that average email is calculated to be worth about $89 to a brand over time one can only imagine how much money information like a person's political affiliations are buying decisions or their

health conditions are worth to other data brokers and companies but it's hard to fix a price on it this industry is built in the shadows with word-of-mouth deals and private marketplaces being the only spots that you can buy this information your information 200 billion dollar industry that is built up from using your information and yet with all that being said there's probably one huge question that you have right now a question that you have probably been asking since the start of this video chances are if you were born into a world of surveillance technology in

the Internet hearing about how your data is passed on like this probably isn't going to bother you as much as you may want it to and you're not alone in your apathy there's a very common sentiment which is I have nothing to hide therefore nothing to fear you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about and so the industry of data brokering poses a genuine moral dilemma if your information is being sold that you can use various websites absolute services for free does

it really matter after all data can be used to track down criminals we have an algorithm that we're using that will identify a sort of risk factor for each area it can be used to predict epidemics and treat diseases and improve treatments it can be used for businesses to improve their service or the quality of the products that they present to you but what if that date have got into the wrong hands what if a data broker or a company sold your information to an individual without knowing their real intentions what if an authoritative government

took that information and use it against citizens that were openly against them would you care then or would it be too late right now less than half of the data broker companies in the US let you see what information they have on you they're a literary services where you have to pay in order to stop other companies from using and selling your information your data isn't really yours anymore so is it already too late [Music] I started this video off trying to expose this industry and after all my research I only left feeling more confused

because at the end of the day so many of the services and apps and websites that we use that are free rely on the collection or selling of your data in order to stay profitable so would you want to pay a subscription fee for Instagram or Twitter or Google Maps if it meant that none of these companies were collecting your data and for some of you that hustle would be worth it but for me personally I'm still on the fence and I don't know one thing I can say though is ten needs to be more

regulation things like the GDP are were a step in the right direction but even regulations like these have loopholes and sometimes exists for the sole purpose of extracting money from a company bother than protecting your data and privacy as a whole the data industry is really interesting and worth researching if you want to know how your data is being collected and used and as with everything I think the more educated you can become on the subject the more closer you can become to finding the right solution for it thank you so much for watching this

video was all about data and privacy which is why it's sponsored by North Vee PN just kidding I don't think this channel is big enough for that yet which I'll now note if you're watching this right now you made it to the end which is awesome so let me know in the comments down below I will respond if you enjoyed the video please do be sure to smash the like button and if you didn't like it hit the dislike button and let me know down below in the comments and if you like these sorts of

documentary style videos on business finance and life in general be sure to hit the subscribe button turn all your notifications on check out some of my other videos too it takes me a really long time to edit these things so your support is genuinely really appreciated but all that being said I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day salut [Music] you [Music]