There are several companies able to make complete profiles on us, realities like IDI that claim to have a report on every person in the United States
You know the famous Police song Every Breath You Take? Here, now associate it with the work of a private investigator who, thanks to technology, observes you in every step, every breath or every purchase you make. And unfortunately for our privacy, it’s not science fiction but reality.
Forget the thick glasses and the fake mustache, today’s investigators can know everything about everyone from the comfort of your armchair at home. All it takes is a subscription to a database. According to the numbers of a U.S. research in the U.S. are over 35 thousand private investigators working in this way. Addresses, cars, contact information and personal photographs cost little more than $10. And today they can be supplemented by technology with other information such as donations made, memberships in political parties, and even what you ate the night before if you ordered online.
What is the goal of IDI
All this control makes it very easy for a private investigator to predict our every future move. All of this has been made possible by the work of companies like IDI. These companies are active in the so-called data-fusion business. That is, they combine different information about the same person to create a complete profile. Basically, based on the movements tracked by today’s technology, they build profiles of people from scratch. And the company makes it known that it basically has data on any American person over the age of 21. These personal profiles include all known addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. But also every property ever bought or sold, vehicles owned in the past and those present. If we’ve had criminal citations, if we have hunting licenses, but also names and phone numbers of neighbors. Reports also include car photos taken by private companies that use automated license plate readers and track our movements with GPS coordinates.
Purchasing and behavioral data
IDI also operates two coupon websites, allamericansavings.com and samplesandsavings.com, which collect purchase and behavioral data. When you sign up for the second site, you are asked for your email address, date of birth, and home address. The site also asks if you have ever suffered from arthritis, asthma, diabetes, or depression, ostensibly this data should serve to tailor our account its discounts. In reality all they do is complete our profile.
Data-fusion an expanding market
From the company they make know that there is nothing to fear, since the information is used exclusively by private investigators to get to the bottom of disappearances of children or adults. But cross-data collection, thanks to the advent of the Internet, is an ever-expanding phenomenon that has distant roots. It was started as early as 1990. This includes ties to commerce and government control. These are strong ties that are unlikely to affect user s privacy. To give an idea of the business behind data-fusion just think that IDI in its last quarter had $40 million in revenue.