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NY Post
New York Post
26 Apr 2023


NextImg:Delete this secret ID hiding on your phone that gives away your personal details

From social media platforms to email providers, tons of places on the web want to scoop up your private data.

Don’t forget about online stores and personal services, either.

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Your details are major commodities to most online businesses, and many have little regard for your privacy.

Advertisers and marketers don’t know who you are.

But your behavior is tracked and assigned a unique Mobile Advertising ID (MAID) identifier.

This tiny snippet of information contains where you live, what you shop for, or what you recently searched online.

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Group of friends having fun with smartphones.

From social media platforms to email providers, tons of places on the web want to scoop up your private data.
Shutterstock

Until recently, there had been very little you could do to block your MAID in marketing campaigns. 

Apple somewhat stopped this by allowing iOS users to choose who can target them.

But for criminals, if they can match the ID with a person, they stand to profit greatly.

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Typically, there would be no way for companies or advertising agencies to know who the MAID belongs to.

It’s a collection of data sets, and there shouldn’t be any personally identifiable information (PII).

Close up of woman's hands using smartphone touchscreen

But your behavior is tracked and assigned a unique Mobile Advertising ID (MAID) identifier.
Getty Images/iStockphoto

But Vice’s Motherboard discovered that one company offers the linking of MAIDs to their respective PII.

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Motherboard posed as a potential data client and was told by the company in question that they have “one of the largest repositories of current, fresh MAIDS<>PII in the USA.”

The CEO of the company boasted that all their data sets connect.

Apple somewhat stopped MAID by allowing iOS users to choose who can target them.

Apple somewhat stopped MAID by allowing iOS users to choose who can target them.
Photothek via Getty Images

This poses a considerable privacy risk for everyday mobile phone users.

The information that the company can link to your MAID includes the following:

“If shady data brokers are selling this information, it makes a mockery of advertisers’ claims that the truckloads of data about Americans they collect and sell is anonymous,” Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard.

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The revelation that data brokers can connect advertising IDs to mobile phone users should raise a red flag for everyone.

This is particularly problematic for law enforcement, elected officials, military members, and other high-risk individuals.

If you use an iOS device, you can opt out of personalized advertising through Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT).

“If shady data brokers are selling this information, it makes a mockery of advertisers’ claims that the truckloads of data about Americans they collect and sell is anonymous,” Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard.

“If shady data brokers are selling this information, it makes a mockery of advertisers’ claims that the truckloads of data about Americans they collect and sell is anonymous,” Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard.
Photothek via Getty Images

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The option allows you to stop apps from tracking your online behavior.

On your iOS device, do this:

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Recently, Google added more options for Android users, too. Just follow these steps to opt out: