Under privacy laws now on the books in several states, including California, data brokers are required to disclose which companies have purchased a person’s information upon request. To see exactly what that looks like in practice, Consumer Reports recruited volunteers to formally request their personal data files from some of the largest data brokers operating in the country. Hundreds of people took part.

What came back, in many cases, was startling: full names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, and more than a thousand inferences and predictions about each person’s habits, finances and lifestyle.

The findings make clear that this information isn’t simply sitting in a database somewhere. It is constantly updated, endlessly analyzed, and routinely sold — often to more than 100 of the largest corporations in America.

**What’s actually in these files**

The reports reviewed by researchers included details as specific as the last time a person logged into their computer and how much they had spent on clothing, furniture and restaurant meals over recent years.

Companies such as Acxiom and Epsilon routinely gather the digital trail people leave behind and convert it into thousands of data points and assumptions, including:

How many children someone has, along with their ages and genders
Whether a person works a blue-collar or white-collar job
Whether someone has ever been the victim of fraud

Much of this information, however, turns out to be wrong. One report listed six different estimates for a single person’s age — none of them necessarily accurate.

**Your file begins with who you are**

Data brokers maintain files on nearly everyone. Acxiom says it holds profiles on roughly 95% of American adults, while Epsilon claims to have data on virtually every U.S. household with any commercial value.

Brokers build these files by pulling from public records, commercial databases and other data brokers, stitching together a profile that follows a person for life — and, in some cases, even after death.

**Your devices give you away**

A smartphone’s advertising identifier, a smart TV’s tracking number, a home’s IP address, even a vehicle identification number — data brokers can access all of it. These identifiers allow companies to link a person’s online behavior across every phone, tablet, computer, car and television they own.

**You’re assigned a dollar value**

While data brokers typically can’t see into anyone’s actual bank account, they can estimate income, savings and net worth based on modeled behavior — where someone lives, what they’ve purchased in the past, and how similar consumers behave financially.

**Health and identity are inferred, not confirmed**

Without access to real medical records, brokers still make educated guesses about a person’s sleep habits, whether they smoke, their body mass index, and whether they carry health insurance. They also estimate religion, ethnicity, political leanings, and even the precise ages of someone’s children. Those conclusions are then sold to pharmaceutical companies, health care providers and insurers.

**Predicting what you’ll do next**

Data brokers assign probability scores estimating how likely a person is to buy products from hundreds of different brands. They forecast what car someone might buy next, where they prefer to eat, and whether they’re likely to be interested in cryptocurrency investments.

**A “lifetime value” score — and a profit label**

Personal data has become a genuine commodity. A bank might use it to decide whether to offer a better — or worse — credit card sign-up bonus. A homeowners insurer might use it to determine what additional coverage to pitch. A clothing retailer might use it to set a personalized price on a sweater.

Epsilon, for instance, calculates a “customer lifetime value” score that estimates how profitable a person will be, sorting individuals into 26 categories with labels such as “Easy Living,” “Savers” and “Big Spending Parents,” then ranking them by profitability using tags like “Maximum Profit Margin.”

Acxiom similarly assigns a “customer lifetime value” score ranging from 0 to 200,000 for auto, home and health insurers, with higher scores indicating greater expected profitability. On top of that, Acxiom tags consumers with dozens of additional labels — things like “Seniors 64+ with Moderate Ability to Pay Medical Expenses,” “3+ Generations in the U.S.” and “Completed High School.”

**Who’s actually buying your data**

The reports obtained by Consumer Reports didn’t just reveal what information had been collected — they also named the specific companies that had purchased each person’s profile. Researchers identified hundreds of buyers across the reports they reviewed, spanning insurance companies, financial institutions, retailers and marketing firms.

**What buyers do with it**

Once a profile lands in the hands of a corporate buyer, it becomes raw material for decisions that directly affect everyday financial life.

Insurers use the data to evaluate the health profile of a company’s workforce, shaping budgets and premium calculations. Personal loan companies use it to identify people who might need financial help or are shopping for a car — sometimes offering loans with unfavorable terms and steep interest rates. Banks use it to market additional financial products, such as identity theft protection or credit monitoring services, that a consumer may not actually need.

**Opting out isn’t as simple as it sounds**

Most of the information data brokers hold doesn’t come directly from consumers — it comes from other companies. Nobody signed up for this. Whether meaningful consent was ever given in the first place is very much up for debate.

And even when someone does opt out, it only removes their data from one broker’s system. It does nothing to erase the copies of that same information that have already been sold to dozens of other companies down the line.

Original source: CalMatters

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