Shutdown 192.com

We’re constantly warned by security experts not to divulge detailed personal information about ourselves on websites. Well, now we don’t have to, because the recently revamped 192.com is doing it for you. And then selling it on for as little as 35p per record.

192.com collates information from various public records and databases – electoral rolls, phone directories, Companies House – and then packages them altogether in one convenient lump.

Simply type in someone’s name and their rough location and you’re near instantly presented with a staggeringly detailed record of that person. You’ll get their full name and address, their telephone number and age (if they have a record at Companies House). You’ll also get the full name of any other adults who live in their house, as well as details of how long they’ve each lived in the property (gleaned from the electoral roll) and how much the house is worth.

If any of the occupants are registered as directors at Companies House, you can get their director information, including company names, addresses and telephone numbers. So now you’ve got the full set of details for someone’s work and home.

Scroll down a bit and you’ll also find full details of the person’s neighbours, including their full names and addresses and telephone numbers. Why would anyone want such information for legitimate purposes? In case your elderly mother wasn’t answering her phone and you wanted to contact her friend next door, is the best reason 192.com can come up with.

IDENTITY FRAUD

192.com insists none of this information is of any real use to fraudsters. “The sort of data we use here is not the data used to validate transactions of any sort,” Dominic Blackburn, technology director at 192.com.

True, you might not be able to apply for a credit card in someone else’s name using just the information provided by 192.com, but it would certainly give you a pretty good head start. The more information you have on someone, the easier it is to hunt them down on sites such as Facebook, MySpace or personal blogs where you can get more. Combine the person’s birthday from their Facebook profile with their age from 192.com, for example, and you’ve got their date of birth.

The ease of such data harvesting techniques is why organisations such as the Government-backed Get Safe Online warns you not to reveal too much personal data online. “Be wary of publishing any identifying information about yourself. In particular things like: phone numbers, pictures of your home, workplace or school, your address, birthday or full name,” the site advises in its safe social networking section. Too late. 192.com’s done it for you.

Read more: Is 192.com Britain’s most invasive website? | PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/07/07/is-192com-britains-most-invasive-website/#ixzz12iXIicAy