How Am I

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tracked
Now for how you're tracked....

You are tracked in these ways

(click on each tile to learn more)

Tracked overall

Government Records

Many government records that contain your personal information are public by law and are increasingly becoming digitized. This data is often compiled by data brokers, which in turn sell it to companies and individuals to use as they wish
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Data Brokers

Data brokers you've never heard of are compiling significant amounts of data on you to then sell it for profit to companies and individuals. Their collection methods are far reaching and you have no control over who they sell data to and how it can be used
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Credit Bureaus

Credit bureaus collect and sell your personal and financial information to a variety of financial institutions. Common occurring errors in this data can lead to denial of important financial products and services. Credit bureaus have also often been susceptible to data breaches
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Law Enforcement

Police departments across the US, particularly in large cities, are utilizing sophisticated surveillance and crime solving tools like license plate readers, cellphone trackers, drones and facial recognition software, among other technologies. The US has approximately 70 million surveillance cameras installed, ranking only behind China
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USPS

USPS sells your address data to marketers and data brokers. This allows these companies to have up to date information on where you live. That’s why those mailers seem to follow you around even when you move to a new address
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DMV

DMVs across the country sell personal data to businesses small and large, which can then easily end up in the wrong hands. Their photo databases are also used by law enforcement to run through facial recognition software, which has often led to misidentification and wrongful arrests
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Tracked in life

Visiting Retailers and Stores

Retailers can have a wealth of online and offline data about you, particularly your purchasing habits. They use this data for targeted ads to attract you into their store, and once inside they can use devices called "beacons" to precisely track your movements. Increasingly they are also experimenting with facial recognition software to track consumers
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Visiting a Healthcare Provider

Healthcare providers can collect a host of data on you such as medical records, prescriptions, insurance claims, lab tests, and even data on your genes and DNA. Big tech is increasingly entering this space and your data is becoming a larger part of healthcare's business model
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Living in a Residential Building

Many buildings have become outfitted with keyless access technology that uses fobs, pin codes, smartphone apps or biometric recognition technology, in addition to standard security cameras. This allows landlords to know when and how often you leave your building. This data collection and usage is minimally regulated and can generally be used by landlords however they like
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Using Ride Hailing or Micro-mobility Services

Ride hailing and micro-mobility companies (like scooters, bikes, etc.) can track your location and pick up / drop off points. This data can be hacked, matched up with other data sets, and potentially be used by government and law enforcement. In addition, ride hailing companies generally allow their drivers to record video of passengers
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Using a Credit Card

When you use a credit card your transaction data is directly captured by a handful of financial middlemen. These companies often sell your data to marketers, data brokers and other interested parties. Despite legal requirements that your data be anonymized, researchers have easily been able to re-identify individuals
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Working Digitally

In general, your employer has the ability to monitor what you type, your internet activity, note what files or software you access and monitor your physical location. This type of tracking is being amplified by many employers as work becomes increasingly done online and remotely
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Using a Consumer DNA Test

DNA test companies have begun selling anonymized DNA data to large pharmaceutical companies and research facilities for genetic drug research. However, that data can sometimes be re-identified and can also be used in criminal investigations. This data will increasingly become valuable to third parties as genetic research advances
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Tracked by devices

Smartphones

Your smartphone, mobile carrier and apps can all track your location and often this data is shared with other parties. While your identity is "anonymized", it's possible to identify you by combining this location data with other data points
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Smart TVs

Smart TVs can identify what programming you watch, match it up to your IP address, along with other information they know about you and sell this data. Details on this type of data collection is often buried in long policies and can be very difficult to opt out
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Voice Assistants & Smart Speakers

Voice assistants often save transcripts of your voice after you say the wake word. They use these recordings to train their software. Voice assistants also collect data on actions you direct them to take. These recordings will only increase and grow in scope as voice assistants become more sophisticated
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Smart Home Security Cameras

Smart home security systems are one of the most hacked internet connected devices, with many high profile instances of breaches leading to harassment and extortion. Some companies have also been found with lax internal security measures, with employees having easy access to user's recordings
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Other Smart Home Devices

Other smart home devices, such as thermostats, locks, light switches and vacuums can use their sensors to gather data about you and your habits. This data can be combined with other data sources to form valuable and potentially identifiable data about you
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Health & Fitness Wearables

Health and fitness wearables record various data points on you including location, health and biometrics. Minimal regulations exist that limit the sharing of health data by technology companies. This could lead to a future where your health data will impact how you're advertised to, your qualification for insurance, and other similar issues
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Cars

Modern vehicles have essentially become computers, and collect a large amount of data including where you go, how you drive and the music you listen to. Beyond the car manufacturers, when you drive around you’re also tracked by a network of license plate readers mounted on vehicles across the country
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Digital Cameras

Digital cameras capture meta data about photos including data/time, device used as well as the location where the photo was taken. Many social networks will store this data when the photos are uploaded and if you send the image to others directly, this data will go along with it
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Tracked online

Browsing the Web

Websites can store bits of code in your browser used to identify you called "cookies". These cookies can track you as you move around the web, tracking what you do and what you look at to enable targeted advertising. Beyond websites, Internet service providers (ISPs) can generally access what you do online and can sell that data without your consent
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Using Social Media

Social media networks track all your personal details, your location, everything you do on their site and can even track you when you're off their site using plug-ins, pixels and arrangements with other companies. Photos of you on social media are also used by third parties to create photo databases used in facial recognition
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Using Apps

Apps are built using software development kits (SDKs) developed by a variety of third parties. These SDKs can collect your location data along with activity across various apps to use for marketing purposes. Any single app can contain dozens of SDKs pinging your data to a whole host of companies you've never heard of
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Utilizing Search Engines

Search engines collect your search queries, click through-histories, location data and internet browsing history, among other data points. They use this data for advertising, optimizing their platform and will sometimes share it with third parties (including the government)
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Sending Emails

Many of the top email services and third-party apps will scan your inbox and use this information to categorize emails, detect fraud and sometimes to promote products through targeted advertising. Email trackers are also used by most companies to collect data on where and when their marketing email was opened
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Using Messaging Apps

Messaging apps generally do not directly read your messages, but they do store data on your contact list, length and time of communications, and your device. When combined with other data sets, it can be used for targeted advertising or sold to third parties. Some apps have also been susceptible to hackers and have shared data with governments
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Streaming Videos

Video streaming services have basic personal data on you along with your watch history and search queries. This data can be shared with or sold to advertisers and third parties to enable targeted advertising. As consumers increasingly move towards these services for content, this data has become the backbone for a growing advertising segment called “Connected TV”
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Video Conferencing

Video conferencing software can store information on how long a call lasts, who's on it, and every attendees’ IP address. If you have a call recorded, these companies could also access the audio and video recordings to improve their technology. There have also been a host of security flaws exposed with some video conferencing software
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Using Public Wifi

Many public Wifi networks ask for an email address before access is granted to identify you. This data is generally used for their marketing purposes but is also often sold to data brokers to better understand places you visit and your potential interests. Public Wifi can also be susceptible to hackers, who can intercept everything you're doing on the network
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How to not be tracked

Data Brokers– see here for a (long) list of large data brokers and how to opt out. Alternatively you can use a paid service like DeleteMe

Credit Bureaus– stop credit bureaus from selling your data for marketing purposes by opting out here

Retailer Beacons– turn off location services and Bluetooth where they are not needed. See this guide for how to manage location sharing on apps for iOS and Android

Loyalty Programs– be mindful of the personal information you share and read their privacy to understand how they use the data. Consider using a secondary email address or Apple sign in or a disposable email service to limit your purchases being linked back to you

Credit Cards– to opt out of their data sharing, Chase, American Express, Visa and Mastercard have online forms you can fill out. To opt out with Citibank you have to call 888-214-0017; for Discover call 800-225-5202. In addition, consider using Apple Card, which has the best privacy measures

DNA Tests– to delete your data from 23andMe, Ancestry or MyHeritage read instructions here

Smartphones– see this guide on how to minimize location tracking for Apple and Android devices

Smart TVs– see this guide which covers many of the large TV manufacturers on how to adjust settings to minimize data collection

Voice Assistants– see this guide here for how to maximize privacy for Amazon Echo and Google Home

Internet of Things (IoT) Devices– try this IoT Inspector developed by Princeton to see which of your device are tracking you. Use a strong password for the device to thwart hackers and consider using a password manager. Also if your device has two factor authentication then you should enable it

Wearables– read a summary of the privacy policy of the major wearable manufacturers, and how to control data collection on your wearable apps

Digital Cameras– you can remove meta data from photos, or prevent it from being captured in the first place. See bottom of this article for instructions

Online– for Chrome, instructions on how to clear and change cookie settings here. Considering changing to a browser with 3rd party cookies automatically blocked like Safari and Firefox or use extensions that help you block trackers like Ghostery. Read here for a summary of options. In addition, using services like VPNs or Tor will reduce tracking. On phones you can use apps like Jumbo, Disconnect and Lockdown, among others which can help block trackers. If making purchases online consider using a disposable email service to limit the ability to trace that data back to you. Also consider using services that can mask your credit card for additional levels of data and identity protection

Social Media– you can reduce some data collection in the following ways: for Facebook you can adjust some privacy settings, for Instagram, see here for a guide to adjusting privacy settings, for Twitter see here for a guide 

Apps– for iPhone users you can turn on “Limit Ad Tracking” in the privacy settings and turn off Background App Refresh in your general settings. For Android devices you can similarly toggle “Opt out of ads personalization” in your settings

Search Engines– click here for a guide on how you can minimize the variety of ways Google tracks you and delete your information from their database. For an alternative to Google consider using a privacy oriented search engine such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage

Email Services– use a privacy-first email service, see here for a few options. Also be cognizant of the third party apps that you use on top of your inbox—if they are free, they’re likely monetizing your data in some form or fashion. Disable autoloading of images in emails and the use of HTML in inboxes. This is generally where the trackers are embedded. Learn more here

Messaging Apps– use a secure messaging app, ideally one that is not connecting to a marketing or advertising driven company. Read here for a review of some of the most secure messaging apps

Streaming Services– for streaming devices like Roku and Fire TV refer to these instructions to adjust settings to minimize data collection. For Youtube privacy settings, see guide here. For Netflix you can delete your viewing history but not necessarily other data points, see here for more information

Video Conferencing– for some specific advice on how to keep meetings safe on platforms like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, Facebook visit this guide

Public Wifi– when connecting to a public Wifi, make sure to read their terms and conditions. You can also use services that creates disposable emails if one is required to access the network. To stay safe from hackers while using public Wifi you can adjust your behavior and settings outlined here. You can also utilize VPNs which will reroute your traffic through dedicated encrypted servers and will help protect your data

See what big tech knows about you via the links below. Click on them for instructions to download the data they’ve collected:

Google

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

LinkedIn

Uber

You are indeed tracked, awareness of these trends is key:

With the progression of technology, there are a growing number of devices, products and services, which require and collect data. This data can be important to the advancement of society but it can also be detrimental if used inappropriately.

Large tech players are entering a variety of new industries, with these companies eyeing any industry which uses significant amounts of data. On one hand these companies can provide real value by applying their expertise in big data and artificial intelligence (AI) to new use cases, but on the other hand, it will concentrate power into the hands of a few large tech companies by effectively creating data monopolies.

With the advancement of data science, big data and AI, along with ever more data collected on the average individual, your data will become increasingly powerful. This makes your data an increasingly attractive asset to companies, data brokers, governments and hackers.

Even “anonymized” data can easily become de-anonymized with the rapid advancement of data-based technologies, or by matching up various data sets together. Unfortunately, much of our current legislation is inadequate in dealing with these issues, as these regulations did not take these new technologies and / or methods into account when they were created.

Your awareness of these issues will be key, in both protecting yourself, and putting pressure on legislators to pass effective laws and regulations.

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