Sacramento, California--California’s consumers are “Still in the Dark”
when it comes to who has access to their personal information according
to a privacy report released today by the California Public Interest
Research Group (CALPIRG).
“This holiday shopping season millions
of consumers surrendered their personal information to retailers across
the country with no idea how or with whom that information is shared”
said Pedro Morillas, CALPIRG Consumer Advocate. “Fortunately there is
light at the end of the tunnel. California already has some good
policies regarding this issue. A few additions to the existing
policies will give consumers the tools they need to safeguard their
personal information.”
According to the Office of Privacy
Protection, in 2006 there were eight million victims of identity theft
in the U.S. One million of those people were from California.
Currently,
consumers are empowered to contact companies with which they have done
business and request an accounting of their information-sharing
practices. Once a company has received such a request, it must do one
of two things:
- Reveal the companies with which they have
shared customers’ personal infor¬mation for marketing purposes within
the previous calendar year, OR
- Provide an opportunity for
customers to opt out of information sharing at no charge (in which case
the company is not required to tell customers what other businesses
have received their information).
We asked members of CALPIRG to
take part in a survey to determine how businesses respond to questions
about how they share their customers’ personal information. The survey
was designed to provide a “consumer’s eye” view of com¬panies’
responses to requests for privacy information.
Unfortunately,
more than one-third of consumers reported receiving no response at all
to their request for information . Instead, many companies responded
with:
- Responses requiring more time and effort from the
consumer (such as writing to another letter to a different branch of
the company).
- Automated responses having nothing to do with the customer’s information sharing requests.
- A failure to respond to the request at all (which a company may only do if they do not share a customer’s information).
While
the current law is a good first step towards educating consumers about
how their information is shared, these problems the report uncovered
indicate that more needs to be done.
CALPIRG is recommending that California policymakers require:
- Companies that do business with California consumers to respond to
privacy requests, regardless of whether they share information with
third parties.
- Companies to both disclose the personal
information shared, and the third parties with which it is shared, and
provide consumers with an opportunity to opt out of future sharing.
- Companies to place a box on their Web sites’ privacy pages allowing consumers to opt out of information sharing.
- Companies to get an affirmative “opt-in” from consumers before sharing
their information with third parties, as opposed to the current
practice of requiring consumers to opt out in order to protect their
privacy.
“Consumers’ information is their own” said Morillas. “They have a right protect it and to know who is profiting off of it.”
CALPIRG,
the California Public Interest Research Group, stands up to powerful
interests on behalf of its members. The full report is available at
www.calpirg.org.
