• Home
• About CyberStreetSmart
• About NYPIRG
• Support NYPIRG

Granting Consumers Control

In this era of e-commerce and databases overflowing with customer information, the meaning of privacy has changed: where once it referred to how well personal information was kept secret, nowadays privacy has more to do with how well customers can control who has access to their information. Consumers should not have to wonder how many third parties will end up possessing their PII when they entrust it to a specific entity for a specific purpose. For a privacy policy to be truly consumer-friendly it must do more than simply disclose a company's information sharing practices, it must grant the consumer control of their own information and its distribution.

Screen Door Awards for Distributing PII without Adequate Customer Control

The more widely distributed a consumer’s PII, the easier it is for that information to fall into the wrong hands - like those of an identity thief or a fraudster. For this reason, we have awarded Screen Door awards to those business practices or privacy policy features that broaden the distribution of customer PII or fail to empower customers to exert control of their PII. And the awards go to the following anti-consumer privacy policy features...

Don't share your social security number unless it's absolutely necessary. ID thieves can use it to set up accounts or credit lines in your name.

Web sites should only collect the personal information that they need to fulfill their services/orders.  Stockpiling more PII than necessary can lead to trouble for the customer and the company. For the customer, the more places their PII is located, the easier it is for identity thieves to find it. For the company, the more PII they have stored, the more exposure they have if they experience a security breach.   Web sites should not “encourage” customers to disclose information they don’t need, especially information as sensitive as your social security number.