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You Are for Sale

Telemarketers call your unlisted number. Employers paw over a copy of your doctor's notes. Banks and supermarkets compile a dossier of your spending habits. Your personal information is brokered by countless businesses and government agencies. Your right to privacy is under attack, and thanks to technology, the situation is getting worse.

  

Dangerous Characters

There is, however, an underground network of resellers who freely traffic sensitive data, no matter how personal or illegally obtained. These firms collect information from dozens of legal as well as illicit institutional sources (including the major credit bureaus), in addition to informants at banks, insurance companies, and other firms.

Six years ago, the federal government cracked down on such criminal activity. But the perpetrators--Super Bureau, Tracers Worldwide, and six other companies--got off with the equivalent of a slap on the wrist: in most cases, a one-year suspension and a warning. According to some legitimate information resellers, who requested that their names be withheld, most of those companies are currently back in business on the Internet.

"Being able to peddle their wares on the Internet lets them sell information quickly, hidden behind an electronic screen, and move on to the next job before any curious authorities look too closely," says an insider.

All of this secretive activity on the Internet has the authorities stymied. "So many data companies come and go, change their names, close their sites, and open new ones on the Internet," says one FBI agent who heads up a computer crime unit. "Only if they do something egregious and obviously illegal, like selling tax returns, can we hope to stop them."

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