Introduction
Europe is known to be a place with strict privacy controls and places human rights and individual security over the rights of marketers, historians, and business analysts.
Over the years, Generation Y (birth years 1980 through 1999) has filed numerous petitions, testified before FISA courts, Congress and local legislators, developed prototype systems and conducted privacy and national security research going back feudal times and then all the way back to 400 A.D.
Our “fight” for privacy was mostly with Baby Boomers who have what we call helicopter parenting syndrome when it comes to national security matters. While there were some actual gunfire fights revolving around the human rights to economic freedom and the right to prosperity, the majority of the efforts were handled peacefully and legally in municipal, state and federal courts with occasional paperwork filed with the United Nations and the International Criminal Courts.
Here is the current guide as of 2019 to “enable” or “activate” your European Type Privacy in the USA.
The USA is still unfortunately an opt-out rather than an opt-in system when it comes to businesses marketing their products to you after you have decided you are ready to make a purchase.
Guide
- Register on optoutprescreen.com
This will prevent credit card companies, loan companies and insurance companies from getting your information from the data dumps they request from the 3 credit reporting companies that include your home address and credit score.You will initially be opted out for 5 years. Make sure you mail back the form you will get in the mail to opt out permanently. - Register on donotcall.gov
I suggest you use an email and register online so you can keep the confirmation. You can then provide evidence of when you registered as well as a call log of when you received the call so the FTC can fine any companies that call you anyways. Reporting these companies helps track down business that are cutting corners by not paying the access fee for the do not call list. Avoiding the do not call list when telemarketing or robo calling is considered a form of tax evasion or business license evasion by some since tax money was used to setup the list in the first place. - Register on DMAchoice.org
This will take care of your junk mail and you can also register your email address to reduce junk mail there. Many people use their email like people used to use postal mail and a filing cabinet. If you are worried about government spying, keep in mind that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, etc. all data mine your email and then attempt to apply for national security grants with the useless information or sell it to marketing companies when their grant applications fail.Also, certain “security emails” such as Proton Mail which is “run out of Switzerland” was actually founded and is developed by MIT student and alumni and is part of MIT VMS (Venture Mentoring Service). MIT is another company, yes Generation Y is looking at academia as a business, that receives tons of grant money and a bunch of tax write offs.In Wyoming and Pennsylvania, you are able to manage your Do Not Call preferences, junk mail preferences and junk email preferences all in one place. Everyone else has to use two different websites (for now).
- Get your Annual Credit Report on www.annualcreditreport.com
This is one of the first things we started fighting for back when we couldn’t even get credit cards and we were in high school. The FCRA was amended in 2003 to allow everyone to review their credit reports at least once a year without payment. - Bookmark consumerfinance.gov
This is the website of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and their website will allow you to report almost anything on anyone involving your financial health and will forward your complaint to the appropriate Federal Agency in charge of regulating that industry if they are not the ones in charge of that area of commerce and business compliance.You will automatically register once you submit your first complaint.
After your first complaint, if you need to submit another complaint just hit forgot password and make sure your profile is completely filled out. This will make things easier going forward.Don’t forget to make pdfs of any emails and take screenshots of anything you wan them to review. It will be used as evidence against the companies violations.This includes credit reports, banking (overdraft fees), loans (mortgage, vehicle or student), debt collection and marketing practices. Be sure you know what you are complaining about and why it is an illegal business practice, do not just file complaints because you disliked something or your complaint will be forwarded to the company and closed without further action.
- Start cleaning up your report.
You’ll have the most trouble with Experian. I had to keep getting the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) involved because they want to be historians with people’s personal information even if the information on the report was obtained illegally by a private investigator or “skip tracer” at a collection company.In my case I had employer information on my personal credit report because I was an officer of a corporation and deceitful business people in California used to conducting commerce with fraudulent business practices were trying to “pierce the corporate veil” and show co-mingling of personal and business assets. I had a good lawyer and a team of Federal Investigators and seasoned business advisors mentoring me along the way though.
The credit reporting companies are not allowed to maintain information older than 7 years if it is negative and older than 10 years in a bankruptcy. This is consistent with the 6 year time frame the IRS keeps records for on people who file taxes on time.
Dispute Your Information Online
Here are the websites to file disputes with for each credit reporting company. Do not let them process things through the mail and create more paper waste and take up to 30 days per item to get your report cleaned up. Do everything online, call them and express your dissatisfaction at their archaic business practices and get the CFPB involved.
Experian
https://www.experian.com/disputes/
1-855-414-6048 | M-F 8AM to 10 PM Central, Saturday 10AM to 7PM Central
P.O. Box 9701
Allen, TX 75013
TransUnion
https://dispute.transunion.com/
866-349-5191
P.O. Box 740256
Atlanta, GA 30374
Equifax
New Dispute: https://www.ai.equifax.com/CreditInvestigation/initLoginDisputePage.action
Check Status: https://www.ai.equifax.com/CreditInvestigation/initLoginCheckStatus.action
800-916-8800
P.O. Box 2000
Chester, PA 19022-2000
Next Steps
US Code Title 15 Chapter 41 Subchapter III Section 1681 Clause a(4) state:
[15 U.S. Code §1681a(4)]
“There is a need to insure that consumer reporting agencies exercise their grave responsibilities with fairness, impartiality, and a respect for the consumer’s right to privacy.”
emphasis mine
Our goal is to FORCE the consumer reporting agencies to delete any information on the consumer credit report that violates a consumers right to privacy.
Again Experian is the holdout here as they are the only ones asserting their right as a historian even if it endangers the lives of the consumer or the consumers family when they are a police informant, in the witness protection program, have extremely high credit or no credit but a large amount of assets.
As an extension police, federal agents, retired military and politicians can also be placed in danger through information on a credit report. They are often unable to make such arguments however since their roles necessitate that their lives will encounter a certain amount of danger. It is my argument as a citizen that the danger does not need to be excessive and reckless and that they too have a right to privacy outside of their workplaces.
In addition to the right to privacy outlined in 15 U.S. Code §1681a(4) our goal is to get the Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRA) to define an appropriate period for record retention consistent with modern background checks. As an intermediate step, we are demanding the following
A consumer can demand that information be deleted from their report that is older than 6 years which is consistent with criminal statutes of limitations, IRS record keeping requirements and international record keeping practices.
If a consumer has had their permanent address for more than 2 years they can request any addresses older than 6 years to be deleted from their report.
A consumer has the same rights with telephone numbers that they do with addresses.
A consumer has a right to prevent all of their properties from appearing on their credit report as long as they have a permanent address that is more than 5 years old.
A consumer has a right to prevent all phone numbers registered under their name from appearing on their report and to refuse to identify who the numbers belong to unless it is directly to a law enforcement agency with a valid warrant.
A consumer has a right to submit evidence to a Federal Regulator regarding consumer report information affecting their personal safety.
Conclusion
As Generation Y continues to take over responsibility from Baby Boomers (currently aged 60 through 79) regarding regarding national security concerns, it is important to remember that many of the policies that are currently in place were designed when television, radio and newsletters via postal mail where the only means of mass communication. The world population was also between 2 and 3 billion between 1940 and 1969 (Baby Boomer Era).
The USA and World Populations have both doubled between 1940 and 2020. This has created problems with pollution, housing shortages, fresh water shortages among other things we’d rather not discuss publicly. It is estimated that the world population will be around 9 Billion in 2050 even with the reduction of births among fertile adults.
We simply do not have time to document every little event for every person on earth and encourage all generations to keep information you feel is important in .jpg, .mp3, .mp4, and .pdf formats.
We also encourage law enforcement to keep as much information as necessary for active investigations within the statute of limitations and to dispose of information that is not related to crimes with no statute of limitations. Currently that is only homicide and child rape.
In an overpopulated world where one city is the size of the entire USA population when the constitution was signed, privacy has a greater effect on security, prosperity and building the vision that the founding fathers had for America when compared scrutinizing microscopic events we normally do not have time for and in most cases end up being irrelevant past a 5 year time frame./