Thread: Your personal information is yours

I only know of one way to stop people from using our personal information. We must make personal information like Social Security Number, Birth Certificate and data bases of information, property of the individual. You should control your private information. If someone or some company is caught with a Social Security Number of a person without that person’s permission, that person or company should pay a large fine, spend some time in jail and the data base destroyed. You should be able to require anyone with your information to notify you yearly as to why they have your information and who has had access to the information and you should be able to demand a fee from anyone or company that makes a profit from the use of your information(with your permission). It should be illegal for any company to require your personal information in order to do business with that company. You could give permission for a company to use a specific amount of your information like name and address for a mail order purchase and only for that one transaction. If you let anyone collect information on you, they must change any of the information to what you want it to say or they must destroy all your information in the data base. It is your information.

I love your innocence. It already WAS that way. Then they changed it..


God please....if there's anything these young must know,.......been there and done that already!!!!!!!!!!!!

My first ss card said "not to be used for identity purposes" right on the front. But then again, when the income tax was added, the people were guaranteed it would never be more than 1% of their income. The Government has a way of making promises to get what they want, then changing their mind. The Indians are not the only ones that learned this the hard way We were also promised, in writing I believe, that there WOULD NEVER BE ANOTHER AMNESTY. Now we fight on a daily basis to get the government to keep their word.

yes you would think our identities belong to us, but in a society moving toward total surveillance of their citizens, it seems that it may be impossible to retain our own identities.

Remember the days when we used to print our SSN on our checks. Nobody was ever concerned. It just shows have far we have dropped and now we have Identity THeft Insurance, unheard of a few short years ago.

I am certain half of my personal information is already in some computer center in India. Just calling Microsoft to fix a problem with Word 2007, I have only spoken with India. Paycheck processing is outsourced, not only to India but cheaper countries in Asia.
Utility companies and banks have my SSN, and who knows how many people with nefarious motives have access to those to be able to sell the information for a high price. Medicare slaps the SSN number on their cards and some hospitals are doing their billing through computer centers out of the country.
Even my posts on the Internet and email are a way to track my interests.
Any property I own is public record, along with any mortgage I may owe.
I have given up on any chance of actually being a "private citizen," and it seems more and more that privacy of any sort is a fleeting thing.

Originally Posted by vortex

I am certain half of my personal information is already in some computer center in India. Just calling Microsoft to fix a problem with Word 2007, I have only spoken with India. Paycheck processing is outsourced, not only to India but cheaper countries in Asia.
Utility companies and banks have my SSN, and who knows how many people with nefarious motives have access to those to be able to sell the information for a high price. Medicare slaps the SSN number on their cards and some hospitals are doing their billing through computer centers out of the country.
Even my posts on the Internet and email are a way to track my interests.
Any property I own is public record, along with any mortgage I may owe.
I have given up on any chance of actually being a "private citizen," and it seems more and more that privacy of any sort is a fleeting thing.

Really Good Points ! I have also stopped worrying about ever having any Personal information privacy . I don't think ANYONE has been spared the selling of your personal info or even Identity theft , it is too much a money making scheme and our own government thinks it is fine.

I have my original ss card and just read the front. I never paid any attention to that. And last night when I was looking at old papers I noticed my ss number was printed on the front of an old check under my name. I thought that was strange. How things change. Today, everybody has my ss number or can easily get it. I can't keep it a secret. Its available to anyone. At my last job I was always asked"what your social?" It would be nice to have such an important number safe and secure from others but with computers and in the way things are done today that is impossible.

Its just a shame that our country has been invaded by illegal aliens who have found that this is a way they can exploit us and steal from us . By stealing our identity. And a lot of the jobs they have taken are jobs which give them access to our personal records. We're very vulnerable and can't do anything about it but hope that we're not next.

I just ran my number through mycreditreport.com (not advertising) to make sure there was no fraud and abuse on my ss number. I went into check my children's b/c I have heard of these criminals stealing children's number and I have to do that in writing so I plan to do that next.

I would advise anyone to check their credit report YEARLY b/c I have heard of the pain and suffering when your identity is stolen to get it back and in good order again.

I always cut up ANY receipts w/my name and number b/c I wouldn't put it past anyone to go through garbage to acquire ss numbers and personal information!!