The much ballyhooed law passed a few years ago that was supposed to address all the privacy concerns out there regarding banks, brokerages, utilities, mortgage companies, and other companies that you do business with requires that all companies send you a privacy notice at least once per year. In that privacy notice you mush be given the right to opt out of certain kinds of information sharing between subsidiaries, and even information being shared with other unrelated companies.
Legally Required Annual Privacy Notice
Don’t remember seeing any of those?
That is no coincidence. Jammed into the same envelope as your year end statement and/or certain tax forms will be a very plain looking piece of paper printed with dense black and white text. Unlike the piles of glossy full-color materials you get in those envelopes year round, this one is designed to NOT be read. The plain text and simple font will make you assume that it isn’t something that you care about, just more legal mubmo-jumbo from the bank. And that, of course, is exactly what the companies are hoping for.
You see, tucked somewhere in that boring piece of “junk” that you throw in the recycle bin without a second thought are all the ways those companies collect private information about you, and what they do with it. For some, it is exactly what you think it should be. The bank has your name, address, and phone number because it has to communicate with you and they don’t share or sell that information with anyone else. But, some of them would shock you.
There are plenty of banks, brokerages, and credit card companies whose privacy statement says that not only do they collect way more information about you than you might be comfortable with, but that they share that information with every other business unit, subsidiary, and parent company even remotely associated. Even worse, many of them will flat out state that they routinely disclose that information to unrelated third-parties without your consent and without notifying you.
How can they get away with that?
You didn’t read yours did you? Do you think anyone else read theirs?
Even if you do read it, opting out is not made easy. For companies that bend over backwards for you to sign up for online statements and access, they seem surprisingly uninterested in you being able to go online to opt out of having every detail of your personal information being sold to anyone and everyone. Instead, you’ll have to fill out a form in pen and paper and send it back to them. Is there an envelope included?
You must be joking. Just finding the right address can be a chore.
Still in this day and age of rampant identity theft and computer break-ins (and based on my mail an alarming number of lost and stolen corporate laptops), the fewer places that have your personal information the better.
So, gather up your mail as it comes in and look for the words “Privacy Notice” or “Privacy Update” or something like that. Put them all in a basket somewhere and then one day, sit down and go through them one at a time and opt out of every single one. Don’t assume that a big brand name bank isn’t engaged in these kinds of tricks because they are just as much as that fly-by-night mortgage broker who sold you that negative amortization adjustable rate mortgage a few years ago.
Spread the word to your friends and family. Maybe if enough people opted out and spoke of their outrage companies would change their behavior. But that day is far in the future, because for now, most people just throw their privacy in the trash.
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