Comment by satvikpendem
1 day ago
Someone would only be able to connect the dots based on what you publicly put out there. If you don't put anything out, there's nothing to connect the dots, unless you buy some sort of dark web leaked dataset. None of your analogies are comparable to online public information because you decide what to put out online, and I never said anything about legality so not sure why you bring that up.
You don’t necessarily decide what to put online. Friends may upload photos of you, data brokers make your information available to “people search” websites, if you buy a house your information is available unless you put it in a blind trust, etc. If you go beyond the web to private services then you have companies like Flock and retailers who use facial recognition, who make their data available to subscribers and partners.
Disturbed people with access to this data can use it to harm people, like the Ebay exec who stalked a critic or the occasional police officer who stalks a romantic interest.
> unless you buy some sort of dark web leaked dataset
Customers of such datasets: banks, insurance companies, HR companies, marketing firms, governments, etc.