NBC5 Chicago Interviews Daliah Saper for its Investigative Report About Online Platforms That Scrape Data and Resell It

NBC5 Chicago Interviews Daliah Saper for its Investigative Report About Online Platforms That Scrape Data and Resell It

February 28, 2020

Watch the full segment here: https://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/searching-for-a-new-job-think-twice-before-posting-resume-online/2213721/

A Chicago woman uploaded her resume to Indeed.com and Careerbuilder.com; however, she later found that her work, education history, and other personal information were uploaded to Trustoria.com, a professional directory site. These sites profit by scraping online personal data from job sites and social media sites, aggregating it into a database, and then charging a subscription fee for anyone to access.

NBC5 Chicago’s Katie Kim and Lisa Capitanini interviewed Daliah Saper for NBC5 Investigates on February 6 to discuss the scope and legal consequences of data scraping personal data as well as how to protect one’s information, privacy, and rights in an increasingly digital environment.

Is it legal?

As a leading tech and social media attorney, Daliah explained that “the problem with resumes is it doesn’t include your driver’s license or social security number … As soon as you have voluntarily uploaded your resume and information, you have foregone any privacy interest.”

Indeed and CareerBuilder’s privacy policies both say that uploaded resumes are “public,” and while both sites’ terms of service agreements also prohibit improper data scraping from their sites, neither company has announced that they have changed their data scraping policies.

How can you protect information?

Daliah provided a few tips to individuals seeking more online privacy:

1. Create a separate email address for online applications
2. Create a google voice number to protect your actual phone number
3. Use a PO Box address

Even with these protections, your name will still be out there, so consider utilizing a recruiter to shop your resume.