Consumer Reports' new app wants to make it clear which companies are collecting your personal data and what you can do to stop it.
Everything you do online can be seen by websites that use cookies to track and sell your data. Now, a new app by Consumer Reports is trying to bring more transparency to the marketplace about which companies are collecting your personal data and what you can do to stop it.
The free app is called a “permission slip.”
Simply download, install, create an account with your email address and phone number, and you'll be presented with a list of hundreds of companies.
When you select a company, Consumer Reports gives you options for what information it collects and what you instruct that company to do.
You may have an account with one of the companies, but you can't tell the app to send a “Do Not Sell My Data” or “Delete Account” message on your behalf. You can then move on to the next card or company. Or a data broker.
“It's very easy to use and exists to help consumers exercise their privacy rights and take back control of their personal data,” said Ginny Firth, director of product research and development in Consumer Reports' Innovation Lab. he told WTOP.
In the multitrillion-dollar commercial surveillance industry, browsers and even brick-and-mortar stores can track your every move and sell that data to brokers, the least regulated companies in the industry. According to the Washington Consumers Checkbook, sold data puts your personal information in the wrong hands and puts your privacy at risk by forcing more products onto you.
Fass led the app development team.
“If it's a company you do business with on a regular basis, it may be to your advantage to have that company store your data without taking any action,” Fass says. . “Many states are beginning to pass new privacy laws that give consumers rights over the data that companies are collecting.”
WTOP's Ciara Wells contributed to this report.
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