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LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

theintercept.com

61–70 of 117 posts

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any downsides to deleting or opting out? Eg if you opt out of credit agencies then you have trouble getting credit cards and loans.

I don't think that it's meaningfully possible to opt out or delete, so this is a purely academic question.

You can factually opt out AND delete the data if you’re a California resident - as specified by the above link.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#62
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that it's meaningfully possible to opt out or delete, so this is a purely academic question.

You can factually opt out AND delete the data if you’re a California resident - as specified by the above link.

Not to a great enough degree, though. Just try opting out of the major data collectors, such as LN or credit rating agencies, and see how that goes.

Also, it does nothing for people who aren't in California.

California's law is much better than nothing, but it's not as good as the GDPR and the GDPR isn't really adequate.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you equate agencies like the FBI and CIA with newspapers. Seems like a really weak argument from here. One is a commercial venture with zero license to kill or interfere with foreign political processes.

The FBI and CIA are newspaper readers in this analogy.

It's a newspaper that isn't affordable to the majority of the public, doesn't do any advertising to the public, nor does the public even know about it.

Not a great analogy really.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#64

California residents, here's the data deletion form: https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request#california

This form asks for your address, ssn, etc. I'm wary of giving this type of a company more information than they may already have. It's like those opt out email links where you need to enter your email address. Are you opting in or opting out ?

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#65

You can get a free copy of what LexisNexis has on you, just like you can with your credit report. The difference is that the LexisNexis report is book thick for most people. The amount of information far exceeds what the credit bureaus have. In my case, quite a bit of it was wrong but adjacent. It thought I owned a huge commercial building, which was actually owned by the developer of a condo I owned in another part…

> just like you can with your credit report

Something I literally have never been able to do, despite tons of trying.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#66
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the stolen cars are taken to a chop shop or ditched before the owner even realizes it has been stolen.

Don't the chop shop locations show up at the hub of stolen car paths when the ALPR data is used retrospectively for cars reported as stolen?

I believe that the very first thing professional car thieves do is to remove the car's license plates.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#67
I was flagrantly misidentified by Lexis Nexis and subsequently a recipient of a pittance resulting from a class action lawsuit many years later. I had to pay for and live out of hotels for several weeks due to their background check connecting me to a person from a state I had never lived in with a middle name and middle initial that was not even same.

The most dystopian part of this is that they aren’t good at the service they provide, don’t have competition or incentive to be, and as a result, people will get caught up in their destructive wake. Fully expecting The Trial to manifest in real life.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#68
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI and CIA are newspaper readers in this analogy.

It's a newspaper that isn't affordable to the majority of the public, doesn't do any advertising to the public, nor does the public even know about it. Not a great analogy really.

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Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#69
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like the government being able to do this, but common sense seems to dictate that in cases where the user has freely given out their information and where a private citizen can go buy that information, the government should be able to buy it.

> in cases where the user has freely given out their information How often have people freely given their information? I'd argue that if you have to give out information in order to live, that doesn't count as freely giving it. That's being compelled to give it. In US society, it's literally impossible to live without giving your information to a variety of entities.

I freely give out my information when I choose to use Facebook, Instagram, MySpace, google maps while logged into google, sweetgreen for ordering for pick up, Uber eats while ordering for delivery. There are myriad of cases where people choose to give out their personal information — and yes before you protest: I can live without having my Sweetgreen ready when I arrive (versus ordering at the terminal when I arrive) or without Uber delivering my meal (I can go to the restaurant).

I acknowledge there are cases where it’s effectively impossible in modern society, such as with giving out your info to get a cell phone, but believe by verbiage “freely giving out information” accounts for this.

Re: LexisNexis is selling personal data to ICE so it can try to predict crimes

#70

It's funny, because growing up I thought LexisNexis were just one of those guys I'd use to find academic articles from the school library system, like JSTOR. Then I got employed by the collections industry straight out of college and found out what skiptracing is. There used to be quite a few skiptracing vendors: Accurint, Banko, FastData, to name a few. LexisNexis bought all of them. I imagine that the dossier they…

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