The Sale of Your Private Information

We live in the information era. Almost anything that you want to know is available to you 24/7, wherever you are, through your computer or your smartphone. What's more, with the advent of AI, if you choose to use it, you don't even need to do the searching yourself anymore. You just ask AI for the information that you are looking for, and it is presented to you with almost zero effort.

This information era has changed the nature of business. While the North American economy has previously been built on engineering, manufacturing and resource development, it is increasingly being supported by information. This isn't scientific knowledge or inquiry. This isn't mathematical theory that may lead to future advancements in understanding. This information that appears to be the cornerstone of modern business is the personal information of each one of us.

There are myriad "rewards" programs that are run by various companies. They offer points that you can use towards future purchases, or they offer member-only special offers that appeal to only a small segment of their patrons. We tend to view these programs as a means for the companies to draw in and retain more loyal customers, but it has occurred to me some time ago that this is a means to collect purchasing information on us. Entire profiles are built using the information that we give up everytime we swipe our rewards card.

For example, the Loblaws group of companies, operating widely under the banner of the Real Canadian Superstore, as well as other banners, has a PC Optimum Rewards program. Everybody who wants to become a part of this program is given a card to scan in order to gain points that can be spent in store. You get points for spending money in their stores and you can get additional points by buying certain items under certain promotions. These points can be redeemed for goods at a rate of 1000 points for $1.00 of merchandise.

Don't get me wrong, this adds up, and especially in an economy as weak as the current Canadian economy, people need all the help that they can find. But have you ever considered what this costs you? This is not just a means to draw and retain customers. If that was the case, I suspect that the costs of administration for this program would make this a money losing enterprise for the company.

This PC Optimum program has expanded from Superstore to Esso and Shopper's Drug Mart. You can earn PC Points at all three of these businesses now. This gives the PC Program access to a significant amount of your data, and that data is used to build their profile of you through your spending habits.

It isn't difficult for the company to determine roughly how many people are in your home through your grocery purchases. Not only by what you buy, but how much you buy. They can also determine your ethnicity to a certain degree by the types of purchases you make. They can get an idea of your schedule by the routine of your shopping trips. They can even get an idea of your income according to how much you spend on what types of products . Adding in the gas that you purchase as well as convenience purchases at the gas station, they can determine how much you drive, and the purchases at the drug store can open a window into your health and personal hygiene preferences and needs.

There is a significant amount of information that we give to this large, faceless company, and we are selling it for a few dollars worth of goods every once in a while. But we need to ask what they are doing with all of this information. Like I said, it is unlikely that the benefits that they can glean from data driven sales tactics can cover the costs of the administration of a rewards program that is that large.

Information is valuable, and your personal information is invaluable. Your information is sold on the open market to anyone who wants it. You give up the rights to your personal information when you agree to enter the program. Your personal information is valuable to marketing firms, survey firms, governments and who knows who else. How else do you think that some of these companies grow so large, so fast? You think you are a consumer, but you are also a product for sale.

A few years ago, I had to deal with a bank that I normally do not deal with. In order to continue in the process, I was required to gain a membership with them. I did not need to open an account, but they stated that they needed my personal information in order to move forward. As the business that I was pursuing was not optional, I had to comply, against my better judgment.

It didn't take long after I shared my information with this bank that they, apparently, shared my information with others. I started getting unsolicited phone calls to my otherwise unlisted phone number. You wouldn't be able to find my phone number anywhere if you were searching for me, yet I was suddenly very popular, and the only way that my number could have gotten out there was through this bank. Needless to say, when my business with the bank was complete, I demanded that they not only void my membership, but also delete all of my information from their system; and the calls have stopped.

I have no doubt that my phone number is still out there, but it is no longer on any newly generated lists, so once the companies that bought my information had used it, they likely sold it to another company that used it, and sold it again, over and over, until the list became stale and the information was no longer considered valuable, so nobody is interested in buying it anymore. The information is too old.

So there is a constant appetite for new information, from any source, on anybody willing to give it up for a few perks. Our government, to the best of my knowledge, is not allowed to sell our personal information, but there is nothing stopping them from buying it. They will buy it largely from "trusted" sources that have access to the largest amounts of our information, and those sources are the banks.

Think of it, probably well over 80% of people use a debit or credit card or their phone to make purchases these days. Every one of those transactions runs through your bank. Just like the grocery store builds a profile of you through your purchases at their member stores, the bank builds a bigger and more detailed profile of you through every purchase that you make everywhere, every deposit that is received, and every subscription that you make. Combing through that data can create an extremely detailed picture of who you are, where you work, where you travel, what your likes are, what your income and spending habits are; almost anything they want to know can be determined by looking at your bank accounts, and that information is invaluable.

Have you ever noticed the profits that banks make? For some reason, the banks regularly report on their profits through the news media. I can only guess that this may be a legal requirement since they are profiting on you and your information. There is a theory that I don't think I have talked about yet, that as long as you are informed about something that is being done, by businesses or governments, even if that information is offered cryptically or through an obscure means, then your permission is implied unless you specifically state otherwise. This explains why the government will post that they are spending $500,000 on gender studies in Africa even though nobody wants it, from here or in Africa. But the money can be sent and it disappears into some shady third party bank account that sends a kickback to the government leaders who sent it, creating a loop of theft of tax payer money through "legitimate" spending. But that is a deep rabbit hole and I digress.

I recently saw a list of Canada's largest companies based on market capitalization. This list was presented alongside America's largest companies, and the difference was eye opening. While the top ten companies on the American companies list was comprised largely of information technology companies along the lines of Nvidia, Alphabet (Google), Apple and Microsoft, the top ten companies on the Canadian list was 50% comprised of...wait for it...banks. Literally, five of the top ten Canadian businesses are the large banks, with a total market capitalization valuation across those banks of $729.48 billion out of a total of $1,305.4 billion for the top ten companies. These five banks hold 55.8% of the market cap valuation of the top ten Canadian companies. The top ten are rounded out by three energy or resource companies, Shopify (at number three!) and Brookfield Corporation. Incidentally, Brookfield Asset Management, infamous due to our Prime Minister's connection to it, is number twelve on the list.

Not one single bank is on the American list, while the Canadian list is dominated by banks. This should be a matter of concern. How is it that Canadian banks are collecting so much wealth off of Canadians? Is it smart investing? Is it astronomical profits off of bank and interest fees? It could be partly both of those things, but my position is that the banks are making bank by selling our information. At least the American list included companies that actually make saleable products and not just ethereal things that exist only on paper.

Your personal information is worth a lot of money, and you are giving it away. It isn't just rewards programs. I can all but guarantee that your cell phone service provider, your internet service provider, your cable or satellite provider, your streaming services are all capitalizing on this information market as well. I just noticed that these are all called "service provider"; almost like they are intentionally masking where their profits really come from.

There is very little that we can do to stop this information from being collected and sold unless we are willing to unplug from society. It is possible to do so, but there are costs of convenience that will be imposed.

If you are now considering whether the conveniences are worth the cost, let me lay out some things that will have to go if you are suddenly concerned about your privacy, but know that there is a cost to each of these choices.

You would need to remove yourself from all company rewards programs that you are currently enlisted in. Of course, you will lose all benefits that this program offers you; you need to determine which is more valuable to you, your privacy or the meagre rewards.

You should cancel your television and streaming services. If you want television without the tracking, there is a requirement in Canada that certain large broadcasters have to provide free basic television that can be captured with a digital television antenna on your roof, with no tracking attached to the signal. You will get maybe five TV channels, but how much TV do you really need anyway? There is truly very little worth watching anymore anyway. You will lose your easy access to music and TV shows with no streaming services, but you can still buy physical copies of music and shows and movies that you will own forever.

You should get rid of your smartphone. There is a ton of information that is gleaned from your smartphone. You can opt for a dumb phone; they are still available. You can still be in contact with people, and your location and call history can still be gleaned, but there is far less information available from a dumb phone as compared to a smartphone. This world is making it harder and harder to ditch the smartphone, but it is still possible. Just last night my family was visiting some friends and we were told that the capital city of our province is implementing a 'cell phone payment only' model of parking meters in the city. If you do not have a smartphone to pay for your parking, you will get a ticket, and the experience of our friend has shown that the city does not care if this is not a payment option for you. They will issue you a ticket with no other option of parking payment offered. 

You can also decide to go cold-turkey on a cell phone. I have, and I am enjoying it. We were visiting with some other friends this weekend as well, and their teenage daughter could not understand how I do not have a cell phone. The idea is beyond her capacity to understand. She tried to argue about what would I do if I was travelling and I ran into some issues, and I tried to explain that that is the way I grew up. We were able to live and take care of ourselves without a cell phone, and I am simply reverting back to that. She still did not understand.

The internet is exceedingly hard to live without in this day and age, and you will give up A LOT if you cut off from the internet completely. A better option may be to invest in a virtual private network (VPN) that masks your location and identification information. I am not fully aware of whatever information costs may be associated with a VPN service provider (there is that phrase again), but it could be worth looking into.

Ditch your digital payment methods and move to cash payments. I am a cash guy and I have been for years. There are very few places that require digital payment in order to deal with them. There are only three places that I have dealt with in the last several years where digital has been the only option for payment. One is a government run refuse transfer station, though I might be able to use cash if I drive farther to the actual landfill facility, and there are also other options available to pursue, which I am working towards. The other two were stores; one of which I was looking to make a purchase from and the other one of my kids was looking to make a purchase from. I suggested to my child that they did not need to buy from that store, but they wanted the particular product enough that they acquiesced to the digital payment demand. The other store was going to get a significant purchase on my part, but when I found that they refused to accept cash, I refused to deal further with them and made my purchase elsewhere. This is a choice that you would need to be willing to make. 

I love dealing in cash. You only spend what you have and there is no record of my purchases other than my receipt. I am not a conspiracy nut, but I do value my privacy. I realize that the Bible tells us that there will come a time when all purchases will be tracked and recorded, but I will not be a part of that system anyway, so I will need to build different means of commerce to circumvent that system anyway.

One other thing that many people will have a hard time with is to stop purchasing the latest and greatest in electronic gadgets. This includes smartphones, but it also includes gaming systems, tablets, computers and laptops, and ever more, it is including new vehicles with all the bells and whistles. Entertainment and navigation systems with large touch screens are the latest crave and electric vehicles, in particular, seem to be packed to the gills with the electronic goodies. If you are looking to buy a new car or truck, consider starting at the bottom trim level and adding some upgrades instead of jumping to the top-of-the-line model with all the toys. There is far less to go wrong and it is more likely that you will actually own your entire vehicle and have access to all of the features all of the time.

To that end, there is a recent spill of information that Ford and Chevrolet have submitted patents that will lock you out of driving your own vehicle if their numerous in-cab cameras and sensors detect that you are inebriated or even just excited. The vehicle may start, but it will not engage the transmission. There are so many faults with this technology, and maybe I will write about that sometime, or maybe not, but it boils down to you losing access to products that you have purchased outright based on the determinations of an arms-length entity that you have given authority to by signing on the dotted line.

As we look at this, is it any wonder that the Canadian economy is in such bad shape? While we used to mine materials and design and build things that other countries wanted to buy, it now appears that a significant portion of our economy is built on selling information or financial products which create no wealth. We are simply circulating our money around and around, with a very few individuals in a position to be able to hold onto most of the money while the rest of us keep shovelling it around.We need to get back to a productive economy where we will see the personal wealth of every individual increase, like it used to do not so long ago.

We have very little control over the things that businesses and even our own governments do, but we can take control of certain things that can serve to protect us from an ever growing surveillance state. There are benefits to these choices beyond just that protection, some of which you may not realize until you have already made the changes. But realize this one thing, the world has changed to something in which your personal information may be the most valuable thing that you own, and we have spent the last two decades becoming accustomed to giving that information away for a pittance.