Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#2Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#3Meh, it’s all public data anyway.
The only “victim” here is CheckPeople, but I doubt that this will have any impact on their business.
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#4There's a site called "Facebook". That has even more
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#5Following data leaks like this one I suggest sending the company, in this case CheckPeople, a GDPR / CCPA deletion request. Here's a simple way to do it: https://yourdigitalrights.org/?company=checkpeople.com
Disclaimer: i'm one of the creators of the service.
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#6From the article: However, under the laws of the People's Republic, government agencies can more or less search any machine at any time in the Middle Kingdom, meaning profiles on 56.5 million American residents appear to be at the fingertips of China, thanks to CheckPeople – we assume Beijing has files on all of us, though, to be fair.
And that is exactly how the Europeans feel when their health records are handled by Google and the TSA wants to know their Facebook handle: what initially appeared as a nice-to-have is now all over a sudden a government source of data no one anticipated...
Edit - oh darn, I forgot Ancestry.com and 23andMe, which are even worse examples: US police has full access to all DNA samples provided by anyone in the past. That is 20 million DNA samples. Not name or age - full genetic info...
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#7"The repository's contents are likely scraped from public records"
Seems like a non-story to me. If you put it out there, someone is collecting, cleaning, and selling it. The fix in this particular scenario is to put less online.
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#8"The repository's contents are likely scraped from public records" Seems like a non-story to me. If you put it out there, someone is collecting, cleaning, and selling it. The fix in this particular scenario is to put less online.
Almost every city in the US has a GIS system which you can use to look up tax record ownership of property parcels. Sales history too even. This information is also available via FOIA requests. There's probably easy ways to scrape it out considering almost every city uses the same 2-3 GIS software systems. In the case of home ownership, the only choice you have for privacy is to register an LLC under a paid attorney as a proxy, and have the LLC buy the home. And even then you may run into issues trying to file for homestead exemption property taxes. You're not able to tell the city to unlist your property info in most cases.
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#9From the article: However, under the laws of the People's Republic, government agencies can more or less search any machine at any time in the Middle Kingdom, meaning profiles on 56.5 million American residents appear to be at the fingertips of China, thanks to CheckPeople – we assume Beijing has files on all of us, though, to be fair. And that is exactly how the Europeans feel when their health records are handled b…
I’m starting to think the Facebook / Google way of harvesting data may really be over complicated. This kind of services shows people are willing to pay to give personal data that literally defines them as individuals to a commercial entity.
Re: Database containing details of 56M US residents found on the public internet
#10"The repository's contents are likely scraped from public records" Seems like a non-story to me. If you put it out there, someone is collecting, cleaning, and selling it. The fix in this particular scenario is to put less online.
Almost every city in the US has a GIS system which you can use to look up tax record ownership of property parcels. Sales history too even. This information is also available via FOIA requests. There's probably easy ways to scrape it out considering almost every city uses the same 2-3 GIS software systems. In the case of home ownership, the only choice you have for privacy is to register an LLC under a paid attorney…
Reading the Letters to the Editor and similar features in older magazines and newspapers reveals something that would be unthinkable today: it was common for the home address of the person writing to the periodical to be published along with their letter. As far as I can tell, no one had a problem with this. When I was young, drivers licenses included your Social Security number and it was common to have it printed on your personal checks. This no longer happens.
Is it the information that's the problem or is the problem what others are willing to do with that information?