• Your boss could be monitoring your computer-usage habits, maybe reading your private e-mails. Even the bathroom may not be safe from snoopers.
The amount of information collected on Americans, much of it readily available and accessible on the Internet, is disturbing, experts say. The databases are ripe for misuse and misinterpretation and are a gold mine for criminals. And the data-gathering grows almost daily.
"We don't have enough privacy laws in place," Soler Meetze said. "So businesses kind of have to step up to do the right thing and make sure this material doesn't get into the wrong hands."
From where you were born to whom you married, how much you paid for your home to the names of your neighbors, the information is available online.
The kind of background searches that took trained investigators months to conduct a scant 20 years ago now can be achieved in minutes by the teenager next door.
For free, Internet search sites such as Google can help you scroll through phone books across the country in seconds. You can look up someone's Internet address, link to his e-mail, even find a physical address.
For a fee, sometimes as little as a quarter, you can get a fairly accurate financial profile of someone, determine whether he or she has ever sued or been sued and whether they are penny pinchers or mortgaged to the hilt.
Companies such as Lexis Nexis have online subscription services that are used by police, insurance companies, doctors, real estate agents, lenders and even reporters.
For instance, a basic computer search through some Internet sites will allow you to look at possible addresses, Social Security numbers and phone numbers for any given last name. The cost: two bits.
If it's not bad enough that someone you've never met could research your entire life, how about knowing that someone you've never met could be watching you?
If you speed on certain streets or one stretch of Loop 101, traffic cameras will snap your photo. Even if you're not speeding, state Department of Transportation cameras often pick you up when you're driving to work.
Maybe a little of both, said Rosemarie Urbanski, executive vice president of the Drake Group, an Arizona private investigation firm that specializes in countersurveillance.
Former Phoenix Police Chief Harold Hurtt, who now heads the Houston Police Department, suggested recently that crime-fighting in Houston could be enhanced with surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, on downtown streets and in private homes.
"I know a lot of people are concerned about 'Big Brother,' " Hurtt told reporters at a briefing in Houston, "but my response to that is if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
People need to know just how intrusive such cameras are. For instance, in addition to recording video images, are they recording the sounds of private conversations? Are they so powerful that they show what people are reading?
Private business owners who put up cameras should also act responsibly. For instance, she said, they should not eavesdrop on private conversations and should destroy the videotapes when they no longer serve a business purpose.
Loan documents start with a borrower's Social Security number and then go on to ask for credit-card numbers, tax records, past addresses, maiden name and names of relatives.
It would be easy for the NSA, or others, to use that information to compile profiles of people, including details of other previous residences and their spending habits.
"Many people buying a home just hand over their Social Security number. They don't think about everyone who sees it and can track down almost all of their other personal information with it," said Jay Butler, director of the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University's Polytechnic.
Banks, brokerages, mutual-fund companies and other financial outfits have plenty of incentive to safeguard sensitive customer records. Regulators require careful supervision of data. But in addition, sound business practices make safety a viable strategy.
"It's more important to safeguard the information because banks are obligated by law to collect more information from customers (to comply with the Patriot Act)," said Michael Beird, senior director of retail banking at Cornerstone Advisors, a Scottsdale consulting firm.
It is rare for banks to distribute customer records to third parties, Beird said, but this doesn't mean all of your financial records are off-limits. Credit reports are routinely accessed by actual and prospective lenders.
Credit-card firms obtain consumer credit reports to find suitable prospects to pitch pre-approved card offers. When you voluntarily apply for car loans, mortgages and so on, your credit scores and the credit reports on which they're based come into play.
"Any piece of property that is owned by your employers, and not by you, they would have the right to access it," said Amy Jantz, a manager for WorldatWork, a Scottsdale-based professional human-resources firm.
As long as employers put their staff members on notice about their privacy policy, they're basically protected against claims that they have violated a worker's privacy, said Jon Pettibone, a labor and employment-law attorney with Quarles & Brady.
There are a few obvious exceptions, which Pettibone describes as falling within the "reasonable-person standard." These include expecting privacy in the company washroom, although even there, a notice to employees about, say, surveillance would pre-empt privacy complaints, he said.
They, those invisible marketers, know whether we're buying infant Tylenol, six-packs of Heineken or a pregnancy test. That information is sometimes sold to telemarketers who find and court us.
• Calling 800, 866, 888 or 900 numbers. When calling, these numbers can be recorded by a system called Automatic Number Identification and then sold to marketers for mail and phone solicitations.
Some consumer advocates say businesses are too easily turning over the private data of their customers to not only other businesses but also to such entities as the NSA.
"We as Americans are giving out a lot of personal information every day," said Mark Cooper, director of research at Washington, D.C.-based Consumer Federation of America. "Who is guarding it? We should have been asking these questions long before now."
Avoid filling out warranty and product registration cards. A purchase receipt, the product warranty sheet and a UPC should be sufficient if warranty claims arise.
Think twice about joining loyalty club cards when shopping. When the card is scanned, your name and address are linked to your purchases. Sign up under the generic name "grocery shopper" with no address.
Be protective of your Social Security number. Only provide it when you know it's required, as on tax forms, employment records, and most banking, stock and property transactions.
Don't answer unsolicited phone or e-mail requests for personal information. If in doubt, call the company in question to verify that the request is legitimate.
This is cache, read story here
