Recent news stories of personal data theft--about Lexis/Nexis and Choicepoint, personal information at University of Northern Colorado, this week's news about theft of shoe store customers' information from transactions at stores (not even from online purchases)--are spooky enough. But there's lots more to worry about. Consider the article from Wired, "What Search Sites Know About You". Or the pair of articles from virtualchase about "How to Conduct a Background Check" with its built-in implications if you are the object of the check... Genealogists are discussing the problem with mother's maiden name as a security question on accounts as so much family genealogy info is available on line.
There are websites where you can read about privacy issues, like Electronic Privacy Information Center (they have links to some online privacy tools), privacy.org (check out the new news about google's "My Seach History" feature), and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which has a Chronology of Data Breaches Reported Since the Choicepoint Incident that is downright scary.
Short of unplugging entirely (what? no bank account, no credit card?), what can we do? Center for Democracy and Technology has a Guide to Online Privacy that includes a Top Ten Ways to Protect Your Privacy. Looks like barely a start to me.
We learned about the Wired article from LIS News, and the virtualchase articles from Resource Shelf.
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