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I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

nytimes.com

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Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#131

Post by 0xffff2 »

garblegarble wrote: post #111
philpem wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sent a driving licence and redacted the licence number, then overtyped the whole thing with the text in my previous post. My goal was to make certain that if it leaked, the overtyped expiry date should make it useless after a certain point, and the company name should make any company other than that one question the source. As a side effect, it'd also clearly identify the source of any leaks - but that wasn't my p…

>My goal was to make certain that if it leaked, the overtyped expiry date should make it useless after a certain point, and the company name should make any company other than that one question the source. >As a side effect, it'd also clearly identify the source of any leaks - but that wasn't my primary goal. Wouldn't a malicious actor just add block text over your text saying "only for identity verification for Some…

I don't know how GP did it, but I would have made the text translucent and make sure it covered the entire image so that there's no easy way to obfuscated the watermark without also obfuscating the license itself.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#132

Post by aSplash0fDerp »

"You're the product"

So if/when these companies get bought out, go out of business or liquidate their assets in a downturn, then what?

Until they legislate some sort of data expiration date or "do not track lists (similar to do not call lists), it looks like the onus is on the individual to protect their interests/data.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#133

Post by briandear »

earthboundkid wrote: post #114
astura wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already a big (and largely unaddressed) problem with the big 3 credit CRAs, if you know enough about a person you can very easily request their credit report and get the keys to the kingdom (so-to-speak) - everything you didn't already know. I mean, I already request credit reports for my husband without issue, for example (with his permission! - he finds it much easier to just ask me to do those things for h…

CRAs are a scam from top to bottom. A bank makes a lot of money, but in theory, it's doing an important job which benefits society. That job is independently assessing creditworthiness. Of course, it's hard to assess creditworthiness if you don't know if someone is making a lot of loans at different places. So, there needs to be a system for credit monitoring . But credit monitoring is not credit rating . Credit rati…

> We might as well just dissolve the banks and move to a centralized planned economy if that's what we're doing, so that at least the centralized rating agencies will be democratically controlled.

In the history of central planned economies, never have they been “democratically controlled.” Despite the name, places like the Democratic Peoples Republic of Where-ever are never democratic nor are they republics.

> because the whole US financial system is corrupt

Is that actually true or just hyperbole?

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#134

Post by rhegart »

Dating apps too? Wtf, imagine if they knew your preferences were same sex and you flew to Dubai or China and you’ve criticized them, they could sell that data and get you arrested or honeypot you. Great way to get dissidents overseas with other compromising information

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#135

Post by plurple »

CPLX wrote: post #12

I am surprised these guys are able to operate outside the normal credit reporting laws. He’s referencing things that happened in 2009, which is well outside the usual 7 year limit for credit report data. Clearly, these companies are going to make the argument that this is not credit report data subject to consumer credit laws, but I’m curious if that has been tested at all. I would think an enterprising lawyer could…

They’re able to operate this way because everything has been secret. With the new California law it’s probably just a few months until there’s a class action against any or all of these for discrimination against multiple protected classes.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#136

Post by fooqux »

All this makes me wonder: How long until being a privacy-minded individual screws you over in the same way that paying cash for everything screws over your credit rating?

I shouldn't have to choose between privacy and being able to return a device at Best Buy.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#137

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

astura wrote: post #89
Cieplak wrote: post #26

I’m curious what sort of due diligence these companies must do to authenticate you as a person prior to satisfying an information retrieval request. Given that the exchange is entirely digital, it seems plausible that there are bad actors who would pose as someone else to gain access to their personal information. What sort of liability does one of these data controllers bear when they fail to properly authenticate a…

This is already a big (and largely unaddressed) problem with the big 3 credit CRAs, if you know enough about a person you can very easily request their credit report and get the keys to the kingdom (so-to-speak) - everything you didn't already know. I mean, I already request credit reports for my husband without issue, for example (with his permission! - he finds it much easier to just ask me to do those things for h…

> since email address is part of the report

I don't have a business relationship with any CRA. If they have my e-mail it isn't because I gave it to them intentionally. Nor is it guaranteed that they have a valid email that I still control.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#138

Post by awinder »

CPLX wrote: post #126
awinder wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean people have been subjected to fraud scoring for decades, you get declined, you follow up, and you get in w/ a new data point for the next time.

They've been subject to fraud scoring across a large group of disparate companies for decades? I would say that's absolutely not true at all. And to the extent that it is true, via credit reporting agencies, it's extremely aggressively regulated to allow consumers to see and challenge how that data is used, as well as to completely opt out of that system.

Credit card companies use your past history across merchants in risk scoring transactions, yes, and they also pull in data from external sources that are outside of their walls to further enrich that data.

Anyways -- this is all massively orthogonal to what I originally wrote, which was around Sift being used as a consumer scoring system. I shouldn't have "taken the bait" so that's my bad.

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#139

Post by andeebe »

At tapmydata.com we use two levels of verification when a user sends a data rights request to an organisation.

We use 2factor auth on both email and mobile. In fact, you have to verify these before sending a request. Problem is, most organisations want more information from the individuals, such as ID in the form of a passport or driving licence.

We're working on a solution where individuals don't have to give up more data to receive their data. I mean it's not ideal sending a copy of your passport in an email.

Not sure on anyone else's thoughts?

Re: I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score

#140

Post by amelius »

Frost1x wrote: post #96
Cieplak wrote: post #26

I’m curious what sort of due diligence these companies must do to authenticate you as a person prior to satisfying an information retrieval request. Given that the exchange is entirely digital, it seems plausible that there are bad actors who would pose as someone else to gain access to their personal information. What sort of liability does one of these data controllers bear when they fail to properly authenticate a…

I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues. Before, much of this was incredibly difficult to impossible so legislation and regulation was entirely avoidable and relatively rare occurence could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. At this point, technology has enabled this sort of behavior at mass scale, now revealing far more personal and useful information about individuals. A…

> I suspect we as a society need new legislation to deal with these sort of issues.

Why not ban targeted advertising altogether?

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