Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Decode Your Barcode, Get Your Personal Info

Posted by michael on from the mark-of-the-beast dept.

Chris writes "The Swipe Toolkit is a collection of web-based tools that sheds light on personal data collection and usage practices in the United States. The tools demonstrate the value of personal information on the open market and enable people to access information encoded on a driver's license or stored in some of the many commercial data warehouses. Check out the Data Calculator, which shows how much your personal info is worth, and how the data brokers get it. It's all part of the Swipe Project, which will be on exhibition at UC-Irvine in March."

2 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. You can easily see... by centralizati0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can easily see that with a service such as MSN Hotmail, who already sells your personal info, your standard "I had best enter the correct info, or else bad things could happen" person can easily give them (as this project puts it) about $10 worth of personal info right in the sign-up boxes. MSN could then do a search through some of these free services and get even more money, as the information gains value if it is all stored in one location. We can then see how offering free email to the unwashed masses can be very profitable.

  2. Military Records -- "Jackpot" by akpoff · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I checked out the calculator and found that record values typically range from $0.50 to $10.00. Couple of bonus records:
    • Education: $12.00
    • Employment: $13.00
    • Workers Comp: $18.00
    • Bankruptcy: $26.50
    Court records bring in some big dough:
    • Lawsuits: $2.95
    • Sex Offendors: $13.00
    • Felonies: $16.00
    But the biggest payoff comes for Military Records: $35.00.

    When I got out of the military in the early 90s we were strongly encouraged to take our DD-214 (summary of military records) and submit them to the county clerk when we got back home so they'd become public record, that way if we ever lost it we could go look it up. I'm REAL GLAD(tm) I worked with Privacy Act information for my whole career and developed a healthy reluctance to hand out the juicy tidbits contained on my DD-214, e.g., SS#, DOB, education, and of course your whole military career.