Privacy concerns have grown as more of our private data is being gathered online. We share intimate details with just a few clicks. The majority of people, however, are ignorant of how extensively their data is shared.
Behind the scenes, there is a whole data broker industry that makes money off of our digital traces. Businesses or individuals known as data brokers gather and resell personal data, such as phone numbers and online surfing behaviour. In this piece, we’ll look at how data brokers work and some important steps we can take to safeguard our personal data.
Data collection
Data brokers collect data from a variety of public and commercial sources. They can simply gather data from websites and applications without your knowledge by paying app developers to embed SDKs (software development kits) in their apps. The data broker’s SDKs can then record the various rights provided to apps, such as access to contacts and location. They can even pay app owners directly for the information rather than installing the software kits.