All your personal data is being sold for less than a rupee. In a fast growing data brokerage industry, it costs just Rs 15,000 to get details like name, age, address, income, etc, of 1 lakh people.
Your personal data, be it your residential address, your phone number, email id, details of what you bought online, age, marital status, income and profession, is all up for sale. Most of this personal data is sold for less than a rupee per person -the cost of a chewing gum.
The shocking facts are revealed by the Economic Times while they approached companies called `data brokers’, who hawk their services on online listings and sell personal information. ET posed as a prospective buyer.
From Rs 15000 onwards, personal data of about 1 lakh people can be offered through brokerage.
The lists up for sale are creative and granular. One data broker told ET that he could get lists of high net worth individuals, salaried people, credit card holders, car owners and retired women in any given vicinity.
From the list acquired by ET, they called a dozen people to verify the details. And to the horror of those people the data was correct. “It’s scary to say the least,“ said Hyderabad-based Rajashekar, who is among the list.
“It should be deemed as a crime. Without my permission, how can someone trade information related to me?“ said Bengaluru-based Nagaraj BK, who was appalled that details of his purchase of a gas stove on eBay.
Similarly , Bengaluru-based Shruti’s purchase of luggage on Amazon, along with her phone number, and when contacted to check if the purchase listed was accurate, Shruti was offended and scared and even wondered if her Amazon account had been breached.
Most of this data was sold by mobile service providers, agents from hospitals and banks, loan agents, car dealers to the data brokers.