PERSONAL details may fall in hands of hackers through data brokers who mostly collect and sell data to companies or individuals for different purposes.
Data brokers are companies selling personal information about you.
They legally collect information from various sources to build up a detailed picture of who you are and then sell it on.
The information include names, date of birth, telephone numbers, addresses, land records, marriage records, criminal history, social media profiles, and more. These data can now easily be accessed from mobile devices.
Data broking is big business – it’s been estimated that the industry is worth $200 billion per year, with up to 4,000 data brokering companies worldwide.
Speaking to the Daily News, yesterday, Mr Yusuph Kileo, digital forensics investigation expert, said currently there is rise of data brokers, and nowadays data has become a new gold, with people do a lot of business.
“While data brokers collect information for selling, they may unknowingly sell the data to companies or individuals with bad purposes such as hacking, fraud and so on.”
To address the challenge, Mr Kileo pointed out that it was important that the countries enforce the Personal Data Protection Act.
Tanzania’s Parliament recently passed the Personal Data Protection Bill 2022, which, once signed into law, will put in place procedures for the collection, use, and storage of personal data.
The envisaged new law would also have requirement for appointing Personal Data Protection Officer and Data Collectors shall be registered and a license to be valid for a period of 5 years.
“We should actually make sure that countries enforce data protection laws. These laws will help in mitigating or controlling people who collect data for monetary reason as they would now be monitored, the law will be there to protect us, or limiting them,” Mr Kileo argued.
Apart from data brokers, expert mentioned about malicious mobile applications that collect data.
‘These applications we use for free take our data and the companies use them for their own purposes, it could be for malicious purposes. You find application asking user to access their information, and we give permission,” he explained.
To address this problem, Mr Kileo encouraged users to know their applications and make sure that they protect their devices and data that they give out.
When dealing with mobile Apps, cybersecurity expert recommended three important things to consider in order making sure those Apps do not pause a great risk to user’s data and mobile devices.
He said the user must download apps from trusted sources only.
“You must avoid downloading software or any application from an unknown or third-party interface. One of the most trusted and popular platforms for downloading Apps is Google Play Store (for Android) and App Store (for iPhone),” he reminded.
Those trusted sources are also not 100 per cent secure.
Hence, while downloading, the user must check the source or manufacturer of the app.
Mr Kileo also recommended that users should turn off their phone’s location data when it’s not needed as well as switch Bluetooth off when it’s not in use.
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