Your personal electronic trail: The data that comes with discount cards and store memberships
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Whether you're online, shopping in your local grocery store, or in a big-box discount store, the information sponge is working on you.
The information sponge is recording everything and anything it can get, but where does it go and should we be concerned?
From your online provider to your grocery store loyalty card, virtually every move you make is being recorded.
Those loyalty cards are great for discounts but in most cases, all your purchases are stored.
"Then they use all of that to infer behavior or to infer life choices to infer what's going on at home, what your interests are, all of that," explained John Davisson, the Director of Litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
While those cards get you a discount, Davisson said it's not just the discounts that come with it. It's about targeting you with advertising, both in the digital and the physical space.
Those ads can also get very personal.
"Consider what kind of insights can be drawn from the things we buy at the grocery store," he said. "Your stores can infer things about, say whether you have an STD or how many members of your household there are, or whether you might be an alcoholic based on your purchases."
In some cases, stores will sell the information they've collected to marketers.
"[They] can use that to get your products in front of the right eyes," Davisson explained. "Independent of what kind of privacy violations, that works to the customer."
Every business handles its information differently. For instance, Giant Eagle has said they do not sell or share their information outside of the company, instead, they use it to provide targeted savings for their customers.
So, how do you find out if your information is being sold?
It's not easy but first off, you can just ask. Go to customer service or check the fine print in the application for the loyalty card.
Whether it's your membership to an online store or your Giant Eagle Advantage Card, retailers tell you it's in your financial interest, but privacy experts throw up the caution flag.
You scan that card or enter your membership number and the discounts come with it but as we said earlier, it's not all that comes with the scan.
"There's just a lot in the way of very sensitive personal insights that can be drawn," explained Davisson. "Individuals who shop at the stores really don't have any control over how that's used and crunched and analyzed."
The Electronic Privacy Information Canter is all about consumer privacy and Davisson said some of the collectors of your information sell it and share it with other marketers and he said they claim it's raw data without names attached.
"Purchasers of data can reassociate that information that is nominally anonymous with your identity by cross-referencing it with other data points," he said.
Which begs the question - what is the best way to protect yourself?
"Realistically, this is a regulatory problem, it's not something that individuals can work their way out of," Davisson explained. "These are immensely complicated ecosystems of personal data. [Not] even a very sophisticated consumer can control what's happening to their data."
So far, the technology is outpacing efforts to legislatively control it, although some states are trying. Davisson said to read any application closely because there should be a privacy clause that will tell you what might happen with your information.
Of course, Davisson said if you're worried about privacy when it comes to certain sites, the best defense is to simply just not sign up.
