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pandabear187

66 karma · joined March 6, 2017

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pandabear187··on Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?
2 things, 1.)if you make government enforce this, then we are all going to be paying more and things taking longer. This will push the society toward a fascist or communist states where the government is the all powerful and might beast. I do not like this.

2.) in western countries there are already laws that allow you as the consumer to remove any personally identifiable information from being shared. The ownus is on YOU to go do that, it's not hard but will require to track and follow up every year for ever. However you also have a choice of companies that you provide the information to, and what you provide. Any credit agency when you apply for credit asks if you would allow them to resell this. Opt out!

The fact that in most cases people are to lazy to read and understand what they are provinding and for what purpose is the real issue here. Government is not going to make things better or more secure or even be able to enforce this type of governance. Only you and the lawyers can do this.

pandabear187··on Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?
Yes, I protect the shit out of my personal info. I have introduced a seeding mechanism to figure out who is sharing my data whenever I sign up for things. Public records are different and you have to create a Trust or a company to hide behind to not be personally listed.

I would suggest anyone wanting to not be exposed to never use your real name or address online if you're not confident they won't share it. Introducing typos or initials or use a nickname for online orders that allow to list billing address separate from shipping address. Billing data typically has a better chance of not being resold, but there are no guarantees, read their TOS if not sure.

pandabear187··on Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?
I can provide all the sources used for the company I used to work for, however that's irrelevant if you as you said wanted to learn how to fish.

Any and every company selling data and there are thousands is in fact a source you would need to deal with to be removed from the sites that sell it. If you think this answer isn't specific enough, you're not going to achieve anything by me spoonfeeding you info for one such company.

pandabear187··on Ask HN: Who really gives your personal info to Intelius, Instant Checkmate, etc?
I have insider knowledge as I used to work for one of these companies.

Depending on the product you purchase the data comes from multiple sources. Also these companies have sophisticated machine learning capabilities to build a profile based on various attributes found in seemingly unrelated pieces of data.

So the list consists of credit reporting agencies, public records, your online profiles with public access, court records, aggregators like LexisNexis and dozens like them.

This heavy lifting you speak of is done differently by each company and consists literally based on multiple sources to enrich your profile. These companies spend millions on data and engineering and make even more, and whatever preconceived notion you have about courts ordering to seal your records, it doesn't happen in a centralized fashion, you would need to contact each data vendor individually to be removed. But it would be like playing whackamole.