Your name, credit score, income and other personal information is being collected, traded, and sold.
Data brokers get your information from a variety of ways like when you register for a new app, sign up for a financial service, or post on social media.
This data is paired with publicly available information to create a data profile. Our data profiles are called “consumer reports” and are sold to data brokers for big bucks.
It’s a billion-dollar industry, but experts say it’s an industry operating with little regulation.
“It’s the Wild West,” said Truman Kain with the cyber-security company Huntress.
Kain says this sensitive information about your finances, income, and health is used by creditors, insurers, landlords, and employers to make decisions about you.
“One of the biggest issues is there’s currently no oversight on how this data is used, how it’s collected, what the data actually is, who it’s being …