Who Is More Trust-Worthy with Our Data: The Government or Big Companies?

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2 pointskylelibra3 comments

Consider that the governments (state & federal) have all your data and have since you were born. Do you think a bigco would have held all that data for that long without making your life a living hell? (imagine the spam and unsolicited phone calls that you would be getting wo the protection of said government). If anything, things have become worse as more bigcos (like insurers) require government managed data (like health records).

Consider it this way, the worst that happens when a corporation is involved, you may get some spam. There is no limit to how bad things can get if your profile suddenly gets flagged (everything from air travel harassment to Guantanamo).

There's not necessarily a distinction between the two, though, because many companies willingly share data with governments (either due to disinterest in fighting requests, for economic or political gain, or some other reason), or else share the data with other companies who in turn do so.

From that perspective, a large company having your data seems likely to be equivalent to multiple governments having your data, unless you have some reason to believe the company is not sharing your data with governments, and is not sharing your data with other companies who will share the data with governments. Otherwise, the conservative guess is that a large company having your data implies that the governments of all countries they operate in, as well as the governments of all countries their business partners operate in, have access to your data (or at least, can get access if they decide to).

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