How Companies Track Personal Data and Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy

Internet and social network technologies have greatly simplified daily life—online chat, shopping, video, and social media have become the new normal, with China now having 710 million net users, but this convenience also brings personal privacy and information‑security risks that require heightened awareness.

We will first introduce the main channels through which personal information is leaked and the types of software and companies that indiscriminately harvest data, then discuss how to protect personal privacy online and which information needs extra protection, focusing on five companies that are actively tracking users.

SilverPush In 2013 researchers created a malicious audio‑based program called BabBIOS that could freely use a device’s microphone and speaker. SilverPush refined this technology to track users via phones, TVs, and computers; by 2015 their code was embedded in 67 apps, silently monitoring 18 million users through inaudible sound.

When you encounter a SilverPush ad on a webpage, it emits ultrasonic signals that identify all your devices and how you interact with them. Privacy experts fear governments could adopt this technique to monitor daily life; discussing sensitive, unapproved content may require sound‑proof rooms.

FaceFirst/Face‑SIX If a person stored in the FaceFirst database enters a store, an alert with the person’s photo and full profile is instantly sent. Such companies turn facial recognition into a real‑world cookie, allowing retailers and advertisers to track you offline and label you as “profitable” or “non‑profitable”.

Retailers and advertisers can now track you offline, assign you profit‑related tags, and store the data in databases; soon even churches may join the surveillance network, using Face‑SIX software to monitor attendance and donations.

Vizio/Samsung More than 10 million Vizio TVs collect massive, highly precise viewing‑behavior data, which the company calls “smart interaction”. By default the TVs monitor everything you watch, recording hundreds of features linked to your IP address and selling the data to advertisers.

Other TV manufacturers, such as Samsung, also listen to your every move through “smart TVs”, warning users that spoken words and personal information may be captured and passed to third parties.

Ditto Labs Every day more than 800 million photos are publicly shared on social media. Your friends are not the only ones using your selfies to track your life.

Ditto Labs employs image‑scanning and facial‑recognition software for brands, extracting personal information from photos. They can recognize logos, track product usage, and infer your attitudes toward brands.

Companies use this data to build secret online dossiers, turning you into a “brand‑promotion target”. Ditto claims that after analyzing two years of your photos they can reveal many details about you.

Carrier IQ In 2011, large mobile manufacturers allegedly pre‑installed “Carrier IQ” on 130 million phones. Presented as a harmless diagnostic tool, it secretly recorded SMS, phone numbers, and GPS data.

Carrier IQ denied storing or transmitting data, yet promoted “real‑time consumer data” to Nielsen and claimed to provide first‑hand insights. The FBI, citing an ongoing judicial investigation, has not released its findings, fueling speculation that similar programs continue to harvest personal information.

Now let’s discuss how to identify sensitive personal information, protect online privacy, and understand which data requires extra protection (images sourced from the “Data Mining and Data Analysis” public account).

Types of Personal Information Prone to Leakage

Common Channels of Information Leakage

Consequences of Information Leakage

How to Protect Personal Online Privacy

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