Is our personal data still personal?

The use made of  personal data by social media enterprises

Social Media enterprises will gather information about individuals and trade it to firms that want to study those consumers and what they do online. This means that every time you  log in to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc your data is being mined and sold so that companies can tailor their advertising to suit your wants and needs. There is now a law that is now in place in the USA where companies can do this without asking your permission.

Bodies such as airlines, politicians, and even non-profits can use this data for finding new customers or directing goods to existing ones. Financial services companies such as banks and lenders are also using the same data mining services for advertising purposes and to make lending decisions. For example, certain types of credit products, which fit your disposition, could be marketed specifically to you. My colleague Christelle wrote a blog on the societal implications on social media and touched on this briefly saying "One of these profound changes is advertising. Nowadays, these are much more present and much more effective via Social Media."

To put a positive spin on it (for operational purposes) Lending Club makes sure the user’s information checks out to try to protect his or her identity. So they will liken application information from a credit file against information that’s publicly accessible. Lending Club said that if there’s a discrepancy, it gives them more reason to go to more stern identification actions.

Knowing what you now know are you happy for social media sites to use your data?

For more information on the use of your data you can watch this short video.