TC | AUDIO |
00:00:06:00 | This is Liz. |
00:00:07:00 | She has a surprise for her boyfriend. |
00:00:12:00 | Liz hasn't told anyone about her plans ... |
00:00:15:00 | But she can't keep them a secret. |
00:00:17:00 | Google knows Liz is planning a trip, because she uses Gmail. |
00:00:20:00 | Liz is no stranger to Google. |
00:00:22:00 | Google already knows Liz by her email account and her internet address. |
00:00:27:00 | And it knows her contact list. |
00:00:29:00 | Liz's internet service provider has a lot of the same information about her, including her full name and street address. |
00:00:36:00 | When Liz searches for flights, Google also knows that she wants to go to Hawaii. |
00:00:41:00 | When she clicks on a travel site to buy tickets, it knows the search terms she used to get there. |
00:00:47:00 | The travel site also knows when she's planning to go to Hawaii. |
00:00:50:00 | And it knows who she's traveling with and her frequent flier status. |
00:00:56:00 | The federal government also learns where and when Liz is traveling and who's traveling with her ... and checks if she's on a terror watch list. |
00:01:04:00 | From the moment Liz clicked on the travel site, dozens of advertising and marketing firms also have begun tracking her online behavior ... |
00:01:17:00 | These firms may not know Liz by name yet. |
00:01:19:00 | But they know her by unique tracking codes and can follow her movements across the web. |
00:01:24:00 | They see when she goes to another site to read about the best beaches in Hawaii. |
00:01:28:00 | And immediately start showing her ads for bathing suits. |
00:01:30:00 | They learn more about Liz's interests, when she goes to her favorite shopping site. |
00:01:35:00 | Google, Facebook, and Twitter are also gathering more information about Liz's behavior with the share buttons they have embedded on the shopping site - even if she doesn't click on them. |
00:01:45:00 | Facebook, for example, learns that Liz may be interested in bathing suits through its like button ... |
00:01:48:00 | ... even before she posts a picture of a bikini on her wall. |
00:01:51:00 | Her post confirms her interests in bathing suits to Facebook ... |
00:01:55:00 | ... Which immediately shows her an ad for a diet shake. |
00:01:59:00 | The tracking doesn't stop when Liz goes to the mall. |
00:02:02:00 | Google knows where Liz is headed, because she uses Google maps. |
00:02:08:00 | As she drives along, a police car scans her license plate and enters the number into a law enforcement database. |
00:02:16:00 | Her cell phone carrier, Verizon, also records her movements. |
00:02:19:00 | And includes her location data in a bundle of customer information it sells to data brokers. |
00:02:25:00 | Those brokers then sell the information to advertisers, marketers, and other businesses. |
00:02:32:00 | When Liz arrives at the mall, the shopping center tracks her phone's WiFi signal to see which stores she enters. |
00:02:40:00 | And when she walks into a boutique, cameras with facial recognition software take her picture - and may store it for years. |
00:02:48:00 | The cameras are also equipped with software that tracks how much time she spends in each aisle. |
00:02:53:00 | When Liz buys a bathing suit, the store may share information about her purchase with data brokers |
00:02:59:00 | Before leaving the mall, Liz stops at a pharmacy to pick up a few more things for her trip. |
00:03:04:00 | Because Liz signed up for the drug store's rewards programs, it tracks her prescriptions and shares information with marketers about her purchases ... including the home pregnancy test. |
00:03:14:00 | And through a partnership with the drug store, Facebook learns that the diet shake ad it showed her earlier in the day was effective. |
00:03:22:00 | Many of the advertisers and marketers that track Liz claim they cannot identify her. |
00:03:28:00 | But these firms have a pretty good idea of who she is. |
00:03:31:00 | Google and Verizon have a much clearer picture of Liz, because they know her email contacts, the phone numbers she has called, and the locations she has visited. |
00:03:41:00 | Data brokers may know a bit more about Liz, because they can link many of her online and offline activities. |
00:03:46:00 | Law enforcement, private investigators, and attorneys can obtain an even better picture of Liz. |
00:03:51:00 | They can gain access to her private life with a subpoena or a court order, which require a lower burden of proof than a search warrant. |
00:03:58:00 | They can find out who she has called and who has called her. |
00:04:02:00 | They can get location data from her cell phone records. |
00:04:05:00 | They can find out the internet addresses of the computers she has used to go online - and which sites she has visited. |
00:04:11:00 | The picture of Liz created by this information is very detailed. |
00:04:15:00 | She has little control over who sees it. |
00:04:17:00 | Neither do you. |