21 September 2020
SUMMARY VIDEO
The biggest data breach in history continues, and GDPR watchdogs fail to act.
This note presents new evidence of the scale of the vast RTB data breach, and of the consequences of two years of failure to enforce.
Today, ICCL submitted evidence to the Irish Data Protection Commission that show the consequence of failure to enforce the GDPR to stop the vast "Real-Time Bidding" (RTB) data breach at the heart of the online advertising industry.
For two years the Irish Data Protection Commission has failed to take action to end the most massive data breach yet recorded.
In fact, things are worse now than they were in September 2018 when Dr Ryan submitted the RTB complaint. As today's evidence shows, the continuing data breach has resulted in electoral micro-targeting and the profiling of people with in Ireland with AIDS and cancer.
Google’s RTB system now sends people’s private data to more companies, and from more websites than when the DPC was notified two years ago.
Update (28 September 2020): ICCL has now written to Helen McEntee TD, Minister for Justice, to alert her to the continuing inaction by the DPC on this crisis.
RTB data is dangerous.
See ICCL submission to the DPC for sources on each item below.
- A Polish data broker company called OnAudience works with Google’s RTB system to profile and target 1,200 people in Ireland in a “Substance abuse” category, based on a data broker profile built with RTB data. Other health condition profiles from the same data broker available via Google included “Diabetes”, “Chronic Pain”, and “Sleep Disorders”.
Below is an excerpt from OnAudience's website. It shows that Google facilitates targeting of 2,300 people in Ireland who are designated as a "chronic pain" group. There are more examples in the full screen capture.
(Note: OnAudience quickly changed its website once ICCL made this material public).
- The Real-Time Bidding system allows companies to target 1,300 people in Ireland profiled in a “AIDS & HIV” category, based on a data broker profile build with RTB data. Other categories from the same data broker include “Incest & Abuse Support”, “Brain Tumor”, “Incontinence”, and “Depression”.
Below is an excerpt from the same data broker showing that two companies called The Trade Desk (TTD) and AdForm facilitate the targeting of 1,300 and 500 people in Ireland designated "AIDS & HIV". There are more examples in the full screen capture.
- Google’s Real-Time Bidding system sends data about what we do online, and where we are, to 968 companies. As a result, we are all an open book to data broker companies, who build and sell intimate dossiers about each of us.
- Below is a list of the 968 companies that Google shares our secrets with.
- The same Polish data broker used Real-Time Bidding data to profile and micro-target 1.4 Million gay and transgender people during the 2019 Polish Parliamentary Election.
- Below is an excerpt from the data broker's report.
- A US data broker called UberMedia gathers Real-Time Bidding data and tracks the movements of people, including homeless people in San Fransisco before and during Covid.
The slides below show their method.
- UberMedia also used Real-Time Bidding data to track the movements of people in Italian cities during the Covid-19 lockdown.
- You can download a copy of UberMedia's "Data Directory", below. It shows the data that you can buy about millions of people and their movements. As this document shows, these data are derived from the vast Real-Time Bidding data breach.
- An Indian data broker called MobileWalla that used Real-Time Bidding data to illicitly profile Black Lives Matters protesters in the United States has been allowed to gather RTB data about Europeans.
You can download a copy of MobileWalla's "Data Directory", below.
- The IAB is a global organisation that organises and represents the tracking industry. It provides a template for data brokers to trade millions of people's most intimate secrets. This document is called the "Audience Taxonomy". It contains codes for intimate personal characteristics such as “Infertility”, “STD”, and “Conservative” politics, so that companies can efficiently classify each of us.
You can download a copy of IAB's "Audience Taxonomy", below.
