Mask IP Address Article: Does NSA Access the 200 Million US Profiles From Elections?
Dallas, Texas (PRWEB) July 09, 2013 -- Following the recent revelations about NSA surveillance, idcloak has rereleased its 2012 publication, Mask IP Address: Evading Political Invasion of Online Privacy. The article shows how at least 200 million commercially collected profiles of US citizens were purchased in senatorial and presidential elections between 2010 and 2012.
The data – which included individuals’ religious and political leanings alongside their email and IP addresses – was mostly collected by tracking cookies and web bugs embedded in web pages. Once sold, the data was used to target political adverts to potential voters again through cookies implanted on their machines.
idcloak believes such political application of commercially-obtained data without user consent is unacceptable, especially following last month’s NSA whistleblowing.
“One can’t help wondering what happens to the purchased profiles post-election,” says senior researcher, Robin Welles, “and whether the NSA uses this kind of profiling for their own purposes.”
Commercial data-gathering is unique in that citizens are sorted into groups according to their behavior and beliefs. Welles argues this kind of data should not be used by governments without approval from those appearing in the lists.
“Advertising companies can collate browsing data and put together lists of ‘all libertarians in a high-income bracket in the mid-west,’ for example. This kind of data set is very different to the hard-to-sort information that the NSA collects from taps and records. But if the security agency combines its communications records with the advertising industry’s value-based group lists, it opens up horrendous potential for political abuse, both now and in the future.”
Explaining the firm’s motivations for restoring this 2012 story under a 2013 spotlight, Welles points to the current climate of change, “Raising awareness on privacy violations did little to bring about change a year ago, but now there is real debate going on over privacy rights. We want to make sure that past privacy violations are recalled so that those engaged in this debate have a comprehensive appreciation of the abuses occurring.”
idcloak’s Knowledge Centre offers hundreds of free articles as guides towards better privacy online. Third-party privacy services are regularly reviewed and recommended, such as: Block Internet Tracking with a Firefox Adblocker. This and all other articles linked to above offer advice on how to stay off commercial profiling databases.
Gill-Chris Welles, idcloak Technologies Inc., http://www.idcloak.com, 786-210-9230, [email protected]
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