How Much is Your Private Data Worth?

Interesting article from the Star Tribune that shines a small degree of light on the fees telecommunication companies and others charge the U.S. government for your personal data.  Interestingly, while AT&T charges a $325 million activation fee per wiretap and $10 a day for maintenance, “Facebook doesn’t charge the government for access.”  That’s mighty generous of you Mr. Zuckerberg.

Also of interest, is the revelation that AT&T devotes roughly 100 employees to review each request and hand over data, while Verizon has a team of 70 employees that work around the clock on spying.  More below:

In the era of intense government surveillance and secret court orders, a murky multimillion-dollar market has emerged. Paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but with little public scrutiny, surveillance fees charged in secret by technology and phone companies can vary wildly.

AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 “activation fee” for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Meanwhile, email records like those amassed by the National Security Agency through a program revealed by former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden probably were collected for free or very cheaply. Facebook says it doesn’t charge the government for access.  And while Microsoft, Yahoo and Google won’t say how much they charge, the American Civil Liberties Union found that email records can be turned over for as little as $25. 

“What we don’t want is surveillance to become a profit center,” said Christopher Soghoian, the ACLU’s principal technologist. But “it’s always better to charge $1. It creates friction, and it creates transparency” because it generates a paper trail that can be tracked.

But as the number of law enforcement requests for data grew and carriers upgraded their technology, the cost of accommodating government surveillance requests increased. AT&T, for example, said it devotes roughly 100 employees to review each request and hand over data. Likewise, Verizon said its team of 70 employees works around the clock, seven days a week to handle the quarter-million requests it gets each year.

In its letter to Markey, AT&T estimated that it collected $24 million in government reimbursements between 2007 and 2011. Verizon, which had the highest fees but says it doesn’t charge in every case, reported a similar amount, collecting between $3 million and $5 million a year during the same period.

Companies also began to automate their systems to make it easier. The ACLU’s Soghoian found in 2009 that Sprint had created a website allowing law enforcement to track the location data of its wireless customers for only $30 a month to accommodate the approximately 8 million requests it received in one year.

THAT is what corporatism looks like.

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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