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 Invasion
of Privacy
by
Michael S. Hyatt
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Introduction
THE END OF PRIVACY?
Modern
Americans are so exposed, peered at, inquired
about, and spied upon as to be increasingly without
privacy-members of a naked society and denizens
of a goldfish bowl.
-Senator Edward
V. Long
I
was about twelve. I had just returned home from
a sleepover at my buddy’s house. “Dad,”
I began naively, “Jeff says his dad makes
more than fifty thousand bucks a year. How much
do you make?”
I’ll never forget my dad’s response.
It was short and to the point. “Son, that’s
none of your business.” I felt a flush of
embarrassment, knowing that I had just crossed
an invisible line.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, that
brief encounter was my first and best lesson on
privacy. I learned that some things were public
and some were private. A high wall of civility
and social convention separated the two. Only
the ignorant or ill mannered would attempt to
scale that tall and prickly barrier.
I never did learn how much my dad made, and, quite
frankly, after that day I didn’t want to
know. I assumed that this was just the way the
world was-some things were meant to be private.
My, how times have changed!
Our
Present Crisis
Americans-and indeed people across the developed
world-are in the midst of a crisis. You may not
realize there is a crisis, but this only makes
the situation that much more dangerous. Right
now, whether you realize it or not, you are exposed
and vulnerable.
The crisis is quite simple: privacy is ending.
Your home address and phone number, your Social
Security number, your bank accounts, your credit
history, your shopping habits, your work history,
your travel habits-all are readily available to
anyone who might be interested in them.
Thanks to technological developments in computing
and telecommunications-the two fundamental pillars
of the Internet-information that was once relatively
innocuous because it was not collated with other
databases can now be pulled together and accessed
like never before. Worse, the government and various
institutions have the means to collect far more
data about you than they could previously.
But technology is only part of the problem. When,
in the 1960s, Senator Edward V. Long lamented
that Americans were “increasingly without
privacy,” the technological innovations that
we now associate with the invasion of privacy
were in many cases decades away. Yes, computers
make it easier and more convenient to build comprehensive
profiles about individual citizens. Yes, the Internet
has given all of us near-instant access to information
that used to take days, if not weeks, for professional
investigators to assemble. But ultimately privacy
is at stake because of how we have reacted to
these technological developments, how we’ve
shifted away from expecting privacy. As you will
see, in many ways we have become the problem.
Because people have the ability to know the intimate
details of other people’s lives, they have
begun to think they have the right to know. This
new cultural phenomenon has created many new risks
for those who value their privacy.
Marketing Manipulation
Most of your mail and many of your phone calls
come from marketers who have evaluated your profile
and decided that they can convince you to give
them some money. Banks regularly sell comprehensive
profiles to telemarketers, including detailed
account information-spending patterns, payment
histories, credit limits, and more. Even medical
records are used this way; though you might think
you are covered by doctor-patient confidentiality,
the ever present insurance companies make no such
promises of privacy.
To see the ramifications of such marketing manipulation,
consider some true stories. All of the privacy
tales in this chapter come from the Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group._This
organization operates a Web site and runs a hotline
to which callers can report privacy abuses.
Fred
decided not to provide the bank that issued his
Visa card with his new unlisted phone number.
But his next credit card statement had the number
on it. Then he found out that the bank stated
in the fine print of the account contract its
“right to share information” with other
businesses. Fred had no idea how many companies
had received his unlisted number. A bank
representative told him that the bank might have
gotten his phone number when he called the toll-free
customer assistance line. (Many people don’t
know that 800 numbers identify the caller’s
phone number even if it’s unlisted.)
While shopping for maternity clothes, Jack and
his pregnant wife discovered that a store wanted
their name and address for its records. Jack said
that they didn’t want their information passed
along to marketers, but the sales representative
assured him that the store never sold customer
data. But soon thereafter, the couple’s mailbox
started to overflow with offers for baby clothes
and other such items. Doing some research, Jack
learned that, despite the clothing store’s
assurances, it had sold their information.
Ken was surprised to receive a mail offer from
a pharmaceutical company. What was unsettling
was that the ad was about switching to a certain
heart medication. How, he wondered, did the company
know that he was taking heart medication in the
first place? When Ken called to find out, he learned
that the company had gotten the information from
a marketing data company.
Credit
Card Fraud
This is a real problem that has only grown worse
with the proliferation of credit cards. Recently,
three ladies in my office had their purses stolen
by a temp. Before they knew what had happened,
the perpetrator had charged hundreds of dollars
to their credit cards. After spending weeks trying
to get the mess straightened out, they are, as
I am writing this, still dealing with the aftermath.
Other people in similar situations have spent
years trying to get their credit history repaired.
Consider what happened to these victims:
- A
thief who stole Gina’s wallet was, in a
matter of hours, able to charge $10,000 on her
credit cards. Gina took all the right steps
by alerting her credit card companies to the
theft and by closing all her accounts. But the
theft still affected her standing: she found
that banks and other financial institutions
wouldn’t approve her for a loan. And almost
unbelievably, she discovered that the thief
used Gina’s name when she gave birth, which
meant that the birth certificate named Gina
herself as the mother.
- A
coworker stole Barry’s Social Security
number, address, and other information from
his employee personnel records. (It wasn’t
hard: the company stored the records in unlocked
file cabinets where anybody could get to them.)
The thief eventually obtained a number of credit
cards in Barry’s name, charging hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
- Peter
was thrilled when someone called to tell him
he had won $50,000 in the lottery. So he was
eager to cooperate when the caller asked him
to verify his identity by providing his driver’s
license number and Social Security number. But
Peter never got the $50,000. No, his “prize”
was something far different:_in just a short
time, someone began making major credit card
purchases in his name.
Identity
Theft
Though you may think this is unlikely to affect
you, identity theft is a mushrooming problem.
And the problem goes far beyond ruined credit.
Identity thieves, who need only a Social Security
number to operate, have been known to commit other
crimes while using someone else’s identity.
As a result, the victim of identity theft himself
becomes a suspect.
Even identity thieves who look nothing like their
victims have managed to cast suspicion on them
by committing crimes using their names. Often
the victim’s attempts to explain the situation
to creditors and police officials are met with
hostility and suspicion. If you are a victim,
you may have to pay exorbitant lawyer’s fees
to defend yourself against crimes you never committed.
Worse, identity thieves have been known to share
numbers so that the same person is victimized
again and again.
Here are just a couple of real-life examples of
identity theft:
- Although
Bradford is a corporate executive, law enforcement
officials think of him as a drug dealer. Why?
One of their databases improperly linked his
name with that of a known felon. To protect
himself, Bradford always carries a letter that
verifies his innocence, but that didn’t
stop drug agents from busting into his home
and arresting him at gunpoint. Failing to thoroughly
research his record, the officials mistakenly
thought that Bradford was the criminal.
- Terrence,
a police officer, was shocked by what other
officers found on a man they caught rummaging
behind the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV):
his own wife’s driver’s license. Soon
after their wedding, Terrence’s wife got
a new license that didn’t have her maiden
name on it. But it seems the DMV was just throwing
away old licenses, not taking the important
precaution of shredding them first. It wasn’t
long before criminals were taking advantage
of this.
Stalking
This crime is also on the rise. It is particularly
frightening because it can involve not only harassment
but also violence and ultimately even death. Advances
in technology have enabled many stalkers to track
their victims efficiently. Today a stalker no
longer has to follow you in order to find out
where you live. With a few dollars he can find
out all about you via an Internet private investigation
service. So even moving won’t be much of
a deterrent. Within a few days, a determined stalker
can discover your new address and where you work.
Take just one example, in this case a victim who
fortunately was never physically harmed:
- A
stalker was after Jennifer for years. Every
time she moved, the stalker tracked her down.
How?_He had gotten her Social Security number
back in college, when a professor had posted
Social Security numbers on a list of students’
grades. Jennifer told the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
that she appealed to the Social Security Administration
for assistance but that the agency did nothing
to help her.
Frozen
Assets
Through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN), the U.S. government and its allies are
monitoring day-to-day financial transactions.
This surveillance would be bad enough if the government
were simply looking for bona fide criminal activity.
But that’s not the case. Officials are looking
for suspicious behavior that might appear to warrant
an investigation. And, oh, by the way, while they
are conducting the investigation, they might just
decide to freeze your accounts without charging
you with a crime. It’s happening every day.
Frivolous
Lawsuits
Sadly, our present legal system can be used as
a tool to plunder other people. The end of privacy
means that nearly anyone with a little know-how
and determination can get a list of your assets
to decide if you are worth suing. If you own any
significant property (real estate, brokerage accounts,
retirement accounts, royalty income, and so forth),
you could find yourself involved in a frivolous-and
costly-lawsuit.
Employment
Insecurity
Should a prospective employer be able to examine
your college driving record when the job has nothing
to do with your driving? Employers regularly gain
access to all sorts of information about their
prospective employees-information that is arguably
none of their business-and discriminate accordingly.
This is often done without the prospective employee’s
knowledge. In fact, entire companies specialize
in providing this information for a modest fee.
And more and more companies are surreptitiously
monitoring employee communications, including
e-mail, voice mail, and live phone conversations.
What kind of information could unfairly hurt your
employment situation? Consider the case of Harold,
a lawyer who plans to run for judge:
- Harold
was listed as a drug abuser in his Medical Information
Bureau (MIB) file. As soon as he found out about
this, he wanted his record cleared. His reaction
was understandable: the information was completely
incorrect. Harold’s doctor wrote a letter
requesting the correction, but the insurance
company wouldn’t make the change unless
Harold submitted to a drug test and provided
a hair sample.
Government
Surveillance
The government is increasingly tracking the movements
of innocent citizens and doing so as a matter
of policy, not as the result of a warrant and
reasonable suspicion. Any opposition to this trend
is greeted by the response that if a person is
not doing anything wrong, he should have nothing
to hide. But, through the intelligence network
and monitoring system known as Echelon, authorities
monitor virtually every transmission of any kind
for keywords that might warrant further investigation.
Moreover, the FBI is pushing the use of Carnivore,
a program that intercepts and monitors e-mail
without any external control over what law enforcement
agencies see. Internet service providers are expected
simply to allow a government agency to hook up
a black box to their system and trust the agents
to look at only those e-mails that a court order
has given them permission to intercept.
These are by no means the only problem. Take the
following, an example of government surveillance
in everyday life:
- Fred
received an unsolicited survey from his state’s
department of transportation. A camera had taken
a photo of his car’s license plate, and
the survey asked Fred to reveal all sorts of
information about the trip he was making on
that particular day, including his ultimate
destination. He certainly wasn’t pleased
with such nosy questions; an agency of government,
it seems, was tracking his movements.
Getting
Personal
I didn’t think about privacy much until it
began to affect me personally. Because of the
lesson I learned from my dad, I assumed that everyone
operated on pretty much the same set of assumptions.
Boy, was I wrong!
After the publication of my first book, I appeared
on hundreds of radio and television shows. It
didn’t take long before my own privacy began
to disappear.
First, I began to get unsolicited calls from the
media. When this became annoying, we changed our
phone number to an unlisted one. Unfortunately,
this didn’t seem to help. Soon I was getting
calls not only from the media but also from readers
seeking personal advice. I tried to be polite,
but ultimately we had to disconnect that number
and get an entirely new one. Even then, people
would show up uninvited at the front door, asking
if they could see me.
E-mail was even worse. For a while, I was getting
a hundred or more e-mail messages a day from people
I didn’t know. Some messages were insulting
and rude; a couple were downright threatening.
I grew concerned about my family’s safety.
As a result, we went to considerable lengths to
protect ourselves.
An eye-opening experience in the fall of 1998
made me realize that a few individuals weren’t
the only threat to my privacy. At that time I
was asked to testify before Congress on the possible
effects of Y2K on consumers. After my testimony
I met with congressional committee staffers who
were on loan from the alphabet soup agencies-the
CIA, NSA, FBI, and so on.
In talking to one of the senior staffers I began
to explain my work, but he stopped me short. “No
need to explain,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“We know all about you.” He then pulled
out a thick stack of files with my name on them.
“We have a copy of everything you have ever
written and a couple of your speeches too. We
know just about everything there is to know.”
To me, it was frightening that everything I was
doing was under this kind of scrutiny.
Perhaps you are thinking, That’s interesting,
but it will never happen to me. I’m just
an ordinary Joe (or Joanna). I wish it were that
simple.
The truth is that people know more about you than
you could ever imagine. My situation is graphic
but not atypical. The key is that anyone with
a little ingenuity-or a pretext-can get your phone
number and address, Social Security number and
credit _history, bank account records and credit
card transactions, driving history, medical records,
and more and begin to build a comprehensive profile.
State-of-the-art database storage and retrieval
systems have made this possible as never before.
Marketers do it all the time. Criminals and lawyers
are doing it with greater and greater frequency.
Even the government is doing it, looking for patterns
of suspicious behavior. It’s not just my
privacy that came to an end; yours is in jeopardy
too.
Another
Kind of Book
Most privacy books fall into one of two categories.
First, the best-known books focus almost exclusively
on the problem. They detail one horror story after
another and explain how technology is making privacy
nearly impossible. These books may scare you,
but they offer precious little in the way of practical
guidance.
The second category focuses on solutions, all
right, but these books seem to be written for
people with something to hide-those in trouble
with the law or the IRS, ex-spouses seeking to
shirk their responsibilities, or those trying
to scam others and protect their identity in the
process.
This book is different. It will explain the problem
because awareness is the first step in reclaiming
your privacy, but it won’t stop there. It
will help you determine an appropriate level of
privacy based on your lifestyle, financial resources,
and personal values. One of my goals with this
book is to provide you with reasonable privacy
initiatives, so I have offered specific, real-world
countermeasures that I have personally employed
in my own quest for privacy, as have many others
in theirs.
Let me warn you: this book will take you out of
your comfort zone. You will learn about threats
and risks you may have never considered before.
But better to learn about the invasion of privacy
from a book than by discovering that bank accounts
have been opened in your name or by having your
assets frozen because you withdrew more cash than
usual from the bank. To be forewarned is to be
forearmed.
How
to Read This Book
I suggest that you start by reading Appendix A:
A Privacy Self-Assessment. This will help you
determine where you are now in terms of privacy.
You may be surprised at the results. Most people
don’t realize how vulnerable they truly are.
But even if you are vulnerable, you will quickly
learn how to protect yourself and those you care
about.
The first part of the book focuses on the threats
to our privacy: corporations, criminals, and the
government itself. It will help you see why and
how they are destroying your privacy. It’s
my hope that these four chapters will provide
you with the motivation to reclaim your privacy.
The second part will help you decide what you
want to do about these threats. I don’t presume
that everyone has the same needs or commitment
to privacy. This section will help you determine
a level of privacy appropriate to your objectives
and lifestyle considerations.
The third part is dedicated to providing specific
countermeasures: the nuts and bolts of reclaiming-and
then maintaining-your personal privacy.2
Be advised that the quest for privacy is an ongoing
one. Some strategies that work now may not work
a few months or years from now. That’s why
I have also set up a Web site to keep you on the
cutting edge of privacy technology. You can find
it at www.moreprivacy.com.
Conclusion
My hopes for this book are twofold. First and
foremost I hope it will inspire you to protect
yourself by taking steps to reclaim and preserve
your privacy. Second, I hope that it will do the
same for enough people that we start seeing a
shift in present trends that are bringing privacy
to an end. I would like our children and our children’s
children to live in a world where their privacy
is protected. That will not happen unless you
and I take concrete action now, while there is
still time.
I really believe that we are at the “tipping
point”: the future of privacy-and perhaps
freedom itself-will be decided in our lifetimes.
Whether we lose it entirely or win it back depends
in large part on what you do to reclaim your own
privacy.
Let’s begin.
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