When a data scientist started getting a lot of unwelcome phone calls, she decided to find out why and how.
Her investigation took her deep into the little-known world of “data brokers”, where personal data is legally sold for profit, and our current privacy laws do little to stop them.
ANU Data Scientist, lecturer and academic Priya Dev has always gone to great lengths to protect her personal information from landing in the wrong hands.
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“They’re dark companies that go unnoticed and they’re just trading our personal information,” she said.
But not even a data science academic could hide from the hidden network of data broking.
“It’s a dirty word. It’s dirty business,” she said.
“It’s worth tens of billions of dollars all around the world.”
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Despite being on the national ‘do not call register’, Priya started receiving dozens of unwanted calls from telemarketers and scammers and dug deeper.
She uncovered a sophisticated network of data broker companies, buying and selling her information over 10 years without her knowledge.
Some of the companies have legitimate clients, including banks, energy and car companies, and even the Australian Labor Party.
“It’s passed through 50 hands or 100 hands and that is the art of deception,” she said.
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It begs the question – do Australians really have any control over their personal information?
Trading data for cash is a legal practice, but the problem is when it ends up in the wrong hands.
Law & Cyber founder Simone Herbert-Lowe said: “Once you hand it over to someone you don’t know what they do with it, they might sell it.”
The federal government is working on upgrading our lagging 1988 privacy laws.
It is proposing civil penalties for serious invasions of privacy, with the changes currently before parliament.
They are now considering introducing clear mandatory consent so Australians can opt in or out of having their information shared.
“I think that we need to bring our privacy legislation into the digital age,” Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said
“At the moment we clearly don’t have enough regulation, we don’t have enough control.”
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