Facebook Is Reckless with Your Data. It’s Time to Take It Back
When Facebook learned that the phone numbers, names, locations, and birthdays of more than 500 million users had been posted on a public hacking forum, it might have notified each of those users and gotten to work on preventing a similar event from happening again. The company had been struggling to ensure users it would protect their data since the infamous 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when the consulting firm scraped the data of 83 million Facebook users to influence a US election.
But Facebook, whose leaders know that the leaked data could lead to identity theft and other cybersecurity schemes, reportedly took the opposite approach. Instead of transparency and efforts to prevent another hack, the company planned to “normalize the fact that this activity happens regularly.”
Of course, Facebook has taken some steps to secure its users’ data, including patching up the source of the 2019 leak that unearthed the data posted online in April. But the company’s desire to convince users that massive data hacks are normal is part of a broader worldview that should concern every consumer tapped into the digital economy.
Furthermore, taking some steps to prevent future hacks does nothing for the consumers who were already victimized and are essentially told that it is time to move on. The 533 million people whose data was compromised deserve a lasting solution that will not just make future hacks less likely but show them precisely what data on them is out there, who has it, and how to cut off access to it. Consumers deserve a plan that will help them reclaim their data.
Who should have access to consumer data?
The hack and Facebook’s response to it reveal assumptions about who should be able to access and benefit from consumer data. In the view of Facebook and other tech giants, your data is theirs — not just to collect and improve their services but to profit from and share with a wide range of advertisers and app developers with or without your knowledge. This assumption about who owns your data and has the right to distribute and monetize it explains why Facebook could consider regular leaks of personal information just another risk of doing business.
But there is nothing inevitable about businesses collecting and storing your data, profiting from it, and sharing it with a laundry list of possibly irresponsible third-party enterprises. And there’s nothing we, consumers in an economy that runs on our data, need to accept about regular mass hacks that compromise our security.
On the contrary, consumers can and should have transparency into when their data is being collected and for what purposes. They should have control over how and whether it is used, shared, and sold. In short, they should have access to their own digital identities, which Facebook and its peers develop, package, and sell to the tune of some $6,000 in annual revenue per consumer.
How to get access to your data
Taking back the power over our own data and identities begins with knowing what information about us is out there, often already being sold and shared for profit without our consent. To that end, Reklaim’s My Footprint tool will tell you who’s buying and selling your data specifically.
To help victims of Facebook’s hack, Reklaim launched Facebook Unveil, a tool that allows you to access data attributes that the social network may have exposed about you in its most recent data leak. Those attributes may include sensitive information such as your name, gender, marital status, location, occupation, place of birth, and phone number. Reklaim launched this free service to provide consumers with a way to view and reclaim data that is circulating on the web. In other words, we are providing a plan of action for consumers who don’t just want efforts to prevent future hacks but also want access to the data about them that has already been compromised.
All you need to do to see this information using Unveil is to enter your phone number and verify you are the owner of the phone number via two-factor SMS verification. Once confirmed, Reklaim will query to determine if you were part of the list the hackers have. If so, Reklaim will not only inform you that you were part of this leak but also allow you to view the data associated with this particular breach. Facebook Unveil is the second phase of Reklaim’s mandate of providing consumers with access to their data, the first being when they unveiled data being used by data brokers for 320 million Americans.
Unveil not only shows you the data companies have collected about you but also allows you to edit that data to correct inaccuracies; opt-out of its use; and earn money from it.
A consumer-centric digital economy
A data-driven economy powered by user consent is not just a boon to consumers. It benefits companies, too, who should know that time is up on harvesting and profiting from consumer data without consent. Giving consumers access to their data is increasingly table stakes in the emerging consumer-centric digital economy.
For businesses, that means being transparent about what data is collected, verifying that it is correct with consumers, and getting consent to share or sell it. That will be the only way to do data-driven business in an economy with stricter privacy laws and crackdowns on poor data practices by gatekeepers such as Apple and Google.
What does it mean, then, when we say that it is time for consumers to come together and take back our data? It doesn’t mean that data-driven business will end or that digital advertising should go away completely. It means consumers should have transparency, access, and even a share of the profits that are made from the omnipresent collection of our data.
Ultimately, it means it is time for the creation of a new digital economy: one where it is never assumed that consumers will hand over their data and that it can be leaked or sold without consequence, one where consent and security are the default and consumers’ access to their digital identities is taken for granted, as opposed to the other way around.