Governments are too often unfit to care for your data. A source of leaks and a source of evil. Not sure there’s any practical way, for an individual, to fix the incompetence, except by not participating in “government” things.
See: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/04/many-public-salesforce-sites-are-leaking-private-data/
The State of Vermont has been handing out things like:
๐ full name
๐ Social Security number
๐ address
๐ phone number
๐ email
๐ bank account number
in at least five places, to all comers. I presume, if you live in Vermont assume you’re toast already.
Not the first won’t be the last. (Sometimes its a whole nation betrayed by government bureaucracy.)
If you think its only government, you’re wrong. One US bank has been leaking:
๐ name
๐ address
๐ full Social Security number
๐ title
๐ federal ID
๐ IP address
๐ average monthly payroll
๐ loan amount,
to all comers.
Plus hundreds of organisations (in this one case alone), many of which don’t have a way to report this, let alone respond.
That’s close to my heart. I have tried to inform banks, tax offices, other government departments, and utility companies over the years of their security problems. They generally waste my time (plenty of time), and are sometimes openly hostile to being informed. There are some good ones though, once in a while you get real thanks.
Health services are often a special form of disaster. Not if they leak but how quickly.
Then we have so many web sites…
If you want your personal data for sale on cybercrime fora, some of them are a go to place. (The problem is knowing which ones!!)
Then all those deliberately difficult to read privacy statement, which often in a sneaky way, sort of, admit that they give out your information to a lot of people. If you read them and have doubts, you may be under-estimating how bad it is. These are not the mistakes, this is deliberate.
Those who claim to protect you fail on and on and on, if you care you need to protect yourself.
It’s a wonderful world.
@MikeGale
And private companies are too often selling your data for peanuts. Or even giving it away for free.
The only way to keep a secret is to keep it confined to your brain. Everything else may leak.