How to Wrestle Your Data From Data Brokers, Silicon Valley -- and Cambridge Analytica
It can be done but it’s not easy.
by Jeremy B. Merrill April 30, 5 a.m. EDT
Cambridge Analytica thinks that I’m a “Very Unlikely Republican.” Another political data firm, ALC Digital, has concluded I’m a “Socially Conservative,” Republican, “Boomer Voter.” In fact, I’m a 27-year-old millennial with no set party allegiance.
For all the fanfare, the burgeoning field of mining our personal data remains an inexact art.
One thing is certain: My personal data, and likely yours, is in more hands than ever. Tech firms, data brokers and political consultants build profiles of what they know — or think they can reasonably guess — about your purchasing habits, personality, hobbies and even what political issues you care about.
You can find out what those companies know about you but be prepared to be stubborn. Very stubborn. To demonstrate how this works, we’ve chosen a couple of representative companies from three major categories: data brokers, big tech firms and political data consultants.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-to-wrestle-your-data-from-data-brokers-silicon-valley-and-cambridge-analytica
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Around the time of the 2016 election, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a Belgian mathematician and founder of a website that helps people exercise their data protection rights called PersonalData.IO, approached me with an idea for a story. He flagged some of Cambridge Analytica’s claims about the power of its “psychographic” targeting capabilities and suggested that I demand my data from them.
So I sent off a request, following Dehaye’s coaching, and citing the UK Data Protection Act 1998, the British implementation of a little-known European Union data-protection law that grants individuals (even Americans) the rights to see the data Europeans companies compile about individuals.
PersonalData.IO
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