Data mania
Every moment that you’re online, you’re feeding a vast, invisible machine called the data harvesting industry. Corporations can collect and sell your data to the government, allowing them to potentially target you for online speech, protesting, and more. Now, the government wants to build a single, centralized platform where U.S. spy agencies and the government can easily buy highly detailed information about millions of Americans.
Documents obtained by The Intercept reveal that the U.S. is looking to establish a “one stop shop” for the U.S. government to buy our most sensitive data. This sort of surveillance is a massive threat to free speech and expression. I broke down what’s happening in my latest YouTube video, and you can read Sam Biddle’s reporting here.
One thing I’ve learned from covering tech and internet culture is how insanely easy it is for someone to find your personal info online thanks to data brokers. They collect your address, your email, your phone number, even your relatives’ names and put it all up for sale to the highest bidder. Bad actors can get a complete picture of your life in seconds.
That’s why I use DeleteMe. It’s a service that actually finds and removes your personal data from hundreds of these broker sites. It’s not just a one-time thing, they keep monitoring and taking it down all year.
If you care about protecting yourself, especially if you’re even slightly public-facing, go to JoinDeleteMe.com/Taylor20 and use my code Taylor20 for 20% off. Protect your privacy today.
What I’m reading
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance