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Are There Any Government Entities Protecting Our Private Data Online?
There is one large agency that should be protecting our private data online and elsewhere, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC is supposed to protect consumers, maintain competition, and advance organizational performance. They seem to be getting the last two right, but the first one, not so much. More than ever, companies are buying and selling our personal information without any regard for our privacy. While for most of us who are abiding by the law, there should be no problem posting our information or sending emails that contain private data like a copy of our social security card or other identifying information. However, with companies taking full advantage of our ignorance to their lax privacy policies, none of our information is private. Any apps we’ve used in the last ten years have been given full access to our most private, personal information, including pictures of our children and families.
The EU has a much stricter privacy policy in place and forces companies to give full disclosure every time their website is accessed by an EU user. While the supposed reason for the United States sharing of all our personal information was supposed to be to protect children from exploration, the problem has only gotten worse. In addition, all of us have had our data used, misused, bought and sold without our clear understanding or consent. Most often the language concerning data privacy is buried deep in legal jargon. All companies in the US have full reign to take our data, and the FTC has given them that full access. While a hearing into the data practices of Facebook was big news, nothing changed as far as what companies are allowed to do or not do with our information. No new laws were passed as a result of those hearings and it’s business as usual for social media, online shopping, data brokers and others to take our data and sell it at their whim.
The backlash of this hasn’t really been reported on yet, but with all this information being used, bought and sold there has to be some overall negative impact. So much of our private lives end up online that it’s hard to know where exactly all of it is coming from. Often, despite our best efforts at keeping our information offline, sometimes various data miners and data harvesters have already gotten some of your personal information such as your address, phone number or other info. As a result of all this data gathering, you may do a search and find out that your personal information has already ended up online. If you find your name and address are online, contact an internet removal service who can show you how to remove your information from the internet. They can also delete information and remove your address from the internet.
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