inside ODNI’s report, commercially available information (CAI) is defined as “information that is commercially available to the public and, therefore, a subset of publicly available information.” This information may include your location, credit history, insurance claims, criminal record, employment history, income ethnicity, purchase history and personal preferences.
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While apps and websites will reveal that some of this information is not linked to your identity, the report says it can be “de-anonymized”. [anonymous data] and identify individuals, including Americans,” through reverse engineering.
Since CAI is commercially available, the information can be obtained from a third-party data broker, usually in exchange for money. The report defines these data brokers as entities that maintain complex databases filled with user data of US citizens.
But data brokers also obtain publicly available information, such as voter registration, bankruptcy information and browsing activity, from cookies. Often, people are unaware that this information is public and that the data brokers obtain it.
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Data brokers rely on website registrations and cookies to track consumers’ online activity and sell the data to advertisers to target consumers with advertising. This business practice makes user data a highly valuable commodity.
