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Data Brokers: The Evil Business of Profiting From Your Privacy

The market for data on individual consumers and users is red-hot. But several companies have also been caught, red-faced and red-handed, using their clients’ data in dubious ways. The most notorious of these potential abuses came to light in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election—but it was many years in the making. In 2007, an application called myPersonality was uploaded to Facebook, which had launched its social media website three years prior. The quiz app, created by Cambridge University researcher David Stillwell, not only gathered respondents’ answers; it also collected some of their personal data. About two fifths of respondents agreed to share information from their Facebook profiles, ostensibly to enhance the results of the personality quiz, generating a database that contained information about the backgrounds and preferences of six million people over the course of five years. Two years after myPersonality’s collection efforts ended, another app called This is My Life was uploaded to Facebook. Although it was created by Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan, the app wasn’t made strictly for academic purposes. Inspired by myPersonality, Kogan originally hoped that any data gathered by his app could be used in a partnership using a model developed by fellow Cambridge colleague Michal Kosinski. Kogan proposed that Kosinski license his analytical model to a United Kingdom marketing company called SCL, where it would be applied to any data collected by This is My Life. Kosinski refused Kogan’s proposal, however, so Kogan took his app to SCL and created his own model for interpreting the data. SCL later merged with American hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and rebranded as Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that has since become synonymous with political scandal and the misuse of private data gathered online. Between 2014 and 2018, Kogan’s app and analysis model helped Cambridge Analytica collect data on more than 40 million Facebook users. The personal data was later used by the campaign for Donald Trump, which deployed Facebook ads to influence voter behavior in the 2016 election. Cambridge Analytica has also since been accused of illegally participating in a pro-Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom. Cambridge Analytica’s most notable donors include Republican hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon. Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge Analytica, told The New York Times in 2018 that the company’s focus was not on protecting user privacy, but instead on shaping the behavior of the general public. For Cambridge Analytica’s leaders, the Facebook data presented an opportunity to fight a perceived culture war in both the United States and Britain. Conservative investors knew the company would be able to use the data it had collected to predict voter turnout in key regions of the United States, to create ads that could be targeted at certain populations, and to spread messages meant to sway political opinions among specific demographics. Cambridge Analytica isn’t the only company to collect and distribute vast amounts of information about people’s private lives. Data brokering, or the practice of gathering and selling data to parties who hope to use it for their own purposes, has become a lucrative industry in an era when many internet users freely share personal details in exchange for online convenience. Every time a user clicks a link, shops online, opens an app, or goes on a walk while carrying a cell phone or smart device, information about that behavior is added to a dossier that, in many cases, is sold to the highest bidder. The most well-known companies that engage in data brokering, such as Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, largely gather data to sell to marketers who want to create more effective advertisements. However, data brokers have also sold to companies with other goals in mind for the information they purchase. Personal data has been used to create more effective advertisements, to exploit emotional volatility in teenagers, and even to target high-interest loans at low-income families. Collecting and selling data may be disconcerting, but in the United States, it’s completely legal. Without stronger legislative protection, consumers and other online users have little hope of preventing their data from being exploited. 0:00 How it all began 2:45 It's happening more than you think 3:59 The distributers are the collectors 6:55 What's in a name? 8:11 Opting out? data brokers 60 minutes data brokers selling your personal information data brokers documentary