When Companies Track Your Life
From large corporations to 鈥榙ata brokers,鈥� there are many companies buying and selling our information. But how are companies using our personal data?
How are companies using our personal data? It is a familiar concern. Online retailers are tracking us so they can sell things to us. Bricks and mortar retailers have loyalty card schemes. Our banks and credit card companies know all about us. And of course, the big computer and telecoms companies could potentially track our internet searches, our phone calls 鈥� even our location as we wander around. But this isn鈥檛 the first time that large corporations have gathered sensitive data about their customers. We tell the shadowy story of how the personal details of Americans were pooled among insurance companies more than a hundred years ago.
(Photo: A police CCTV camera observes a woman walking. Credit: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)
Last on
Broadcasts
- Fri 17 Jun 2016 21:50GMT麻豆社 World Service except East and Southern Africa & News Internet
- Mon 20 Jun 2016 01:50GMT麻豆社 World Service Americas and the Caribbean
- Mon 20 Jun 2016 02:50GMT麻豆社 World Service Online, Europe and the Middle East & UK DAB/Freeview only
- Mon 20 Jun 2016 03:50GMT麻豆社 World Service East Asia & South Asia only
- Mon 20 Jun 2016 04:50GMT麻豆社 World Service Australasia
- Mon 20 Jun 2016 06:50GMT麻豆社 World Service Europe and the Middle East & East and Southern Africa only
- Mon 20 Jun 2016 14:50GMT麻豆社 World Service except News Internet
Download this programme
Subscribe to this programme or download individual episodes.