"The average economically active individual in the developed world is on about 700 databases," said Niamh Gallagher, a researcher at think tank Demos who has spent six months researching the spread of personal data.

We almost never have thought how many people know our identities. For example, just USVISIT border system is cheking identities of the UK tourists in 30 separate databases.

However sharing data is not as negative as it might seem from the first sight. According to Gallager: "It's much harder to live your life without sharing information than it is by sharing". Anyone that tries to stop their personal data leaking away often find they are denied benefits enjoyed by those that are happier to share.''

For example, if you want to keep your name away from the credit checking databases you can pay for everything in cash. However this will create for you problems while taking loans for mortgage.

There are a lot of people who are allowed to check your personal information and control whether you are using it correctly. Only in UK there are 287 000 data controllers. Actually these people are just overseeing those actually work to maintain and expand the data-holding bases. Even more then that: the existence of the word wide web makes it possible to transferr your data worldwide and makes it available for those who will be ready to take a bit of trouble for getting it.

Indeed the hi-tech firm Garlik, helping people to control their personal information at least to some extent, says there are about 1000 sites on web where a persons details can be found. This is mainly because the fact that giving your personal information to one organization or firm, makes it available to many others as well.

"There is no awareness of what happens to that data when you give it away," said Ms Gallagher, "It is not so much the organisations with which you willingly share data," she said, "it is where it goes after that." The times are gone when the firms were interested just in your contact information, now they are willing to know what type is your credit card, how often do you go shopping, what sort of goods you like and so on. So that to build their marketing strategies on this information.

The interests are growing around the issue of personal data. According to Dr Kirstie Ball a senior lecturer at the Open Univerisity: "That personal data held by every organisation you interact with runs the parameters of your existence, your consumption, your entitlements. "We're all interested in the collection and application of personal data and its consequences for individual rights and social science concepts such as trust and discrimination," said Dr Ball.

"It merits study and understanding because its consequences can be tangible. For instance, she said, an employee ticking the wrong box when they enter your data into a database could mean a person ends up labelled as a former criminal or credit liability.

Although it is possible to ask the data companies and organizations reveal your data, very small number of people actually do so, as it is connected with a considerable amount of problems, including the task to make sure all of this information is accurate.


Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7107975.stm