Californians can now put a stop to their personal data being sold around on an online trading floor, thanks to a new free tool. On January 1, the state launched its Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, shortened to DROP, that allows residents to request to delete all of their personal information online that’s been harvested by data brokers.
According to the California Privacy Protection Agency (CalPrivacy), which was responsible for DROP’s release, it’s a “first of its kind” tool that imposes new restrictions on businesses that hoard and sell personal info that consumers didn’t provide directly. The process requires verifying your California residency before you can send a “single deletion request to every registered data broker in California.”
On the other end, CalPrivacy will require data brokers to register every year and to process any deletion requests from DROP. Data brokers will also have to report the type of information they collect and share, while also being subject to regular audits that check for compliance. If any data broker is found skirting the requirements, they could face penalties and fines.
Besides being the first in the country to offer this type of comprehensive tool that deletes online personal data, CalPrivacy said it’s one of four states, including Oregon, Texas and Vermont, to require data broker registration. According to the agency, data brokers will start processing the first deletion requests from DROP starting August 1, 2026.
Cruising Altitude is a weekly column about air travel. Have a suggestion for a future topic? Fill out the form or email me at the address at the bottom of this page.
It’s no secret that airline pricing can be opaque and confusing to many travelers – even to experts.
When I spoke to William J. McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, we joked that one of the worst questions an aviation expert can get asked at a party is, “how do I find a good deal on airfare?” The answer is usually best represented by the shrugging emoji:
¯_(ツ)_/¯
However, flight pricing is getting a renewed round of attention after Glen Hauenstein, president of Delta Air Lines, acknowledged on the company’s earnings call last month that the airline is testing a new AI tool to help set its fares.
Panic from consumers, advocates and even lawmakers naturally ensued as the specter of a new way for corporations to squeeze every penny out of us appeared on the horizon.
For now, Delta (and other airlines) insist that they’re not using AI to make prices truly individualized, but as technology gets more sophisticated, the already-dynamic pricing model used in the aviation industry is likely to get more granular.
Airline pricing is famously opaque. Companies insist that AI isn’t letting them set individualized airfares, but experts worry that such a practice could be on the horizon.
How do airlines price tickets today?
Again, I say: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
“This is such an opaque process, there is so much that we don’t know about what they know about us,” McGee said.
Airlines acknowledge using some of our personal data in setting prices even now but say that such information is used only in the aggregate, not to tailor fares to individual travelers.
In a letter to senators after last month’s earnings call, Delta Air Lines’ Executive Vice President of External Affairs, Peter Carter, explained how the carrier does and doesn’t use passenger data for setting prices.
“There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices based on personal data. … Our AI-powered pricing functionality is designed to enhance our existing fare pricing processes using aggregated data,” the letter said. “Given the tens of millions of fares and hundreds of thousands of routes for sale at any given time, the use of new technology like AI promises to streamline the process by which we analyze existing data and the speed and scale at which we can respond to changing market dynamics.”
Still, McGee said airlines have a history of testing the limits of price differentiation.
“It’s really a much longer story going back 20 or 25 years at least. The technology has improved for them, and that has increased the airline industry’s ability to tailor surveillance pricing, individualized pricing,” he said.
For now, Delta says it’s just using AI technology to streamline the work of its human analysts, who ultimately set and file its fares.
Kyle Potter, editor of Thrifty Traveler, a travel and flight deal website, said it makes sense that airlines don’t have the technical capability right now to target prices at specific passengers, because the system airlines use to file their fares relies on outdated technology.
“The technology in how airlines set fares and distribute them to their own website and other third-party sites, is really a roadblock to offering truly individualized airfare,” he said. “There’s no way to weave in the massive amount of data that airlines have or could have into offering a truly dynamic set of prices that varies from person to person. That’s just not possible today at any kind of scale that I’m aware of.”
Travellers are seen at the Delta Air Lines check-in area at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City, U.S., May 7, 2025. Did these travelers all pay different fares for their flights? There’s no way to be sure.
How could AI be used for airline pricing in the future?
For a third time I say: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
There are just too many variables to be sure about how all this will develop.
“Where we’re at right now is that we’re going to come to look at Delta’s comments last month to investors as a trial balloon for just how far Americans would be willing to go to accept some level of personalized pricing,” Potter said. “The answer, at least for the last month, has pretty clearly been not at all.”
Delta, which is the poster child for pricing developments in the airline world right now, insists it has no intention to ever set truly individualized prices.
“There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices based on personal data,” Carter’s letter said.
But McGee, who works as a consumer advocate, said it’s important for both passengers and regulators to not get complacent as predictive pricing technology gets more powerful.
“It’s going to be very hard, but it’s necessary, for regulators and legislators to get their hands around this and understand it,” he said. “It’s not unimaginable that if this goes unchecked and there’s not action by Congress or (the Department of Transportation), we may all be paying a different fare for the same flight within a few years. That’s going to be a tough thing to undo.”
Potter agreed with McGee’s assessment.
“I think what we saw this year, what we’ve seen again and again and again over the last several decades is that airlines will do whatever it takes to charge people the highest fares possible within the constraints of the technology that they currently have,” he said. “The global airline industry has been trying to push towards a future of personalized airfare. Just because there’s a backlash now doesn’t mean this isn’t going to happen eventually.”
Airfares are subject to change at any time, and the prices are set by people working in a black box behind a curtain.
In general, the advice experts have always given me is to trust your gut. If you feel like you’re getting a good deal on airfare when you look for flights, you probably are. Also: it’s a good idea to leverage consumer-facing price prediction tools, like those available on Google Flights, Expedia and other airfare aggregators.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for USA TODAY. He is based in New York and you can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.
Why are people interested in virtual reality and what can it tell us about who we are and what we might become in a digital world?
“As an artist, it’s a question I’ve been asking for decades,” said artist and media arts professor Marilene Oliver. “Now with virtual reality, when we really are completely immersed in the digital, I wanted to ask that question.”
In addition to her teaching work, Oliver is the co-curator of an art exhibit at the University of Alberta’s Fine Arts Building gallery called Know Thyself As a Virtual Reality.
“It’s based on a Greek maxim: Nosce te Ipsum, which was used in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. In that time, it was: ‘To know your place within a social hierarchy.’
“Later you find it in anatomical engravings, where it’s: ‘To know thyself as a divine work of God.’ And now, the more we’re becoming digital, the more we’re creating these huge data sets of everything we do, we now need to know ourselves, I believe, as digital objects and subjects,” Oliver explained. “This is what we are called to do now to understand ourselves.”
There are seven artworks that use virtual reality to explore different aspects of data and the digital aspects of human life. The works brought together many different disciplines including fine art, radiology, engineering, music, digital humanities and computing science.
Oliver explains one focus of the exhibit as: “Can we find a way to visually communicate what we’re becoming as digital beings?”
That’s where the virtual reality comes in. Donning a headset and hand controls, a person is immersed in data — the information, how it looks, sounds and feels — and can interact with it.
“In one of the projects that I was part of, called My Data Body, we try to create a body which you can take apart and dissect,” Oliver explained.
“It has many different data bodies in it. It has my MRI scan, all my social media data, my Google data, banking data, my data cookies and it’s put it in kind of this vessel that you can then take apart in an attempt to try and see it, to try and hold it, because how else can we see all this data that we’re generating?”
New exhibit ‘transformé’ hits Montreal’s Palais des congrès
Know Thyself artworks
Where are You?
Story continues below advertisement
“aAron Munson has made a work called Where Are You? and that makes us think about how social media is changing the way our brain works and where we place our attention,” Oliver said.
Munson compared fMRI scans of their brain: neutral, after meditating and after using social media. People can use the VR headset to experience the three different brain scans.
“Chelsey Campbell has made a piece that is very peaceful and restful,” Oliver said. “It makes us think about how much work we constantly feel we need to be doing all the time. She stands against that and has created a very quiet space where you should just lay and enjoy the beauty of the room.”
In the VR experience, the user is transported to a domestic bedroom space.
How lines between information sharing and feeding anxiety are blurring during the pandemic
Ancestry & Me
Story continues below advertisement
“We have another piece by Lisa Mayes, which actually isn’t with an MRI scan, but with her DNA data,” Oliver said.
“She sent off a sample to Ancestry and found out about her family history. She talks about how the scientific data recording somehow legitimized all the conversations that had been had in her family about her ancestral roots, which come from Ireland, from France, Scotland and Ghana.”
“We have another artist who is presenting bodies that aren’t normally present in digital works, which are MTurk workers,” Oliver said.
Artist Dana Dal Bo looks at Mechanical Turk (MTurk) crowdsourcing.
“If you don’t know, Amazon has a service which allows you to employ, for a very little amount, this invisible labour,” Oliver explained. “People do surveys, they do a lot of AI processing … labelling data sets.”
The artist asked MTurk’s anonymous workers to take a picture of what they could see out of their nearest window and send it to her.
A mirror with no reflection
“We have the artist Nicholas Hertz, who’s made a work which is really about the experience of being scanned and the sense of feeling that data is taken from you and then not recognized, not really recognizing the results of those data,” Oliver said.
Story continues below advertisement
Using VR, audience members can experience MR scans, the sounds and feelings they produce and the images they create.
Hertz also questions just how “non-invasive” this procedure is and what it’s like to see yourself reflected in this way.
Social Media Hygiene to Manage Stress
“We tried to create an exhibition which has many different perspectives,” Oliver said. “Maybe it makes people think: ‘OK, what would I do? How would I treat my data if I were making a VR artwork?”
She hopes the art makes people think personally and relationally.
“I hope firstly that they will think about all the bodies of data they have and how responsible they are for it and also how they interact with others.”
Know Thyself as a Virtual Reality
Story continues below advertisement
FAB Gallery, University of Alberta
8807 112 Street NW
Feb. 21 – March 18, 2023
Tuesday – Friday: 12 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday: 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Free
Virtual reality technology allows long-term care residents to experience anything and everything their heart desires
This is an opinion editorial by Morgan Rockwell, founder of Bitcoin Kinetics.
I’m not concerned with Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly getting a loan from Alameda, which was actually FTX customer funds wired through Alameda to be credited on FTX. I’m not concerned with the moral compass of the celebrity investors who gave billions to a kid they didn’t really know or understand, yet endorsed with wealth and credibility. I’m not very concerned with the financial and market effects upon the many companies, exchanges and traders who for some reason depended on FTX in any form.
I’m most concerned with Sam Bankman-Fried getting the personal identification information of millions of customers, and using that data to do chain analysis on the Blockfolio app he purchased which was used by many Bitcoiners and cryptocurrency holders as a tracking tool of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other watch-only cryptocurrency wallets.
Source: Google Images
If you aren’t aware, Blockfolio was an app that was used by many Bitcoin holders and other cryptocurrency holders to keep track of the exchange rate or the prices of their coins held in cold storage or on wallets that they only wanted to be watching and not have actively on a hot wallet on their mobile device. Storing the wallet addresses actually were not even needed on the app. You could just put in a amount of a certain cryptocurrency that you wanted to watch and say that you had — but there was also a feature to connect to exchanges to keep track of all of your coins across all of the exchanges you had them on in one app. This was the beauty of Blockfolio as it didn’t necessarily ask for too much personal identification information other than an email to help keep track of your account so you can log in from multiple devices.
Most of us like myself became aware of Sam Bankman-Fried because of the purchase of Blockfolio by a newly formed entity called FTX. Over several weeks the Blockfolio app was rebranded as the FTX app which now had its own exchange. It also had a new set of Know Your Customer rules, Anti-Money Laundering policies, a new Terms of Service, as well as its own custodial wallet held by FTX, we assumed.
Here you can see the Terms of Service at Blockfolio from June 30, 2017:
Blockfolio avidly argued that they were not and would not ever sell user data. Blockfolio even attempted to de-identify users with a hashing mechanism for IDs to not even let themselves identify and connect user portfolios to email addresses; this apparently never happened after the purchase and transformation into FTX.
Here you can see the stark difference in the new FTX Privacy Policy:
Here is what little is mentioned about personal identifiable information within the FTX Terms of Service, which is a different document than the Privacy Policy.
For reference, if you have never read a Terms Of Service or Privacy Policy of a company before, I strongly recommend you grab a strong beer and enjoy this word soup!
This all has brought up questions around this merger and the acquisition that happened in the cryptocurrency industry only a few years ago. I am concerned because after the fallout of this exchange, FTX going bankrupt and all of its assets potentially being put up for auction, I would like to know the state of the personal identification information that FTX had been forced to gather because of KYC and AML laws. My concern is the vast amount of information gathered including passports, phone numbers, IP addresses, home addresses, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, email addresses, passwords and government IDs. All of these could be sold at auction as customer data or customer profiles to whoever finds them valuable.
Source: FTX Privacy Policy (disclosure in the event of merger, sale, or other asset transfers)
Now the assets held by FTX whether they were actually real cryptocurrency such as bitcoin or made up tokens built on another layer one network such as ethereum are not too important in this conversation in my opinion. What is important is the data, the privacy data, the data mining operation that could have or will be done on all of this data FTX had gathered on customers either it was done by them or it will be done by whomever buys this data at auction. Even more so, the jurisdiction of that data is open to anywhere on earth.
Source: FTX Privacy Policy (international data transfers)
As someone who has personally worked on coin analysis concepts and technology for the United States Military, as well as consulted on this for the Department of Defense as a so called “subject matter expert,” I can personally attest that it is very easy to correlate a person to their Bitcoin wallet address using nothing more than the amounts of bitcoin held on specific addresses, as well as the device data that is keeping track of those specific amounts on specific addresses — this is simple SIGINT, MASINT or HUMINT, all of which are different forms of intelligence gathering.
If you are keeping track of any bitcoin on any wallet over any Bitcoin explorer that is looked through a browser or app on any device, phone, laptop or tablet, there is now a record that will be connected to the IP address, the MAC number, the SIM phone number, the VOIP number, credit card number, home address and any other personal identifying information that is attached in any way to this device. I know this because Edward Snowden leaked documents showing that the NSA had a program called XKEYSCORE and applications were used like OAKSTAR and its subprogram MONKEYROCKET to specifically keep track of Bitcoin users at the NSA.
Now what I’m getting at is this data that FTX was forced under AML and KYC law to be gathered. This is potentially one of the largest gatherings of this type of data in the cryptocurrency industry ever done in history. This data, combined with coin analysis information related to bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrency amounts being tracked by the previously titled Blockfolio app has created a situation where KYC data personal identifying information can be now superimposed over Blockfolio email addresses, UTXOs and watch addresses that plenty of people used on Blockfolio without any personal information being divulged to the app.
So this means that people that used Blockfolio to keep track of the amount of cryptocurrency they had, wanted to buy or were keeping track of for whatever reason will now be able to be correlated to very detailed personal identification information. The concern I have is not whether FTX and its hundreds of subsidiaries were keeping track of this information from Blockfolio or using it in any way, but that their vast new pool of customer information and data will be binded in the future to the Blockfolio data. I don’t assume FTX was intelligent enough to do this for any purpose such as advertising, or data sharing with a hedge fund like Robinhood was caught doing, but I do assume that they may have considered selling this data to law enforcement agencies, to advertisers or to actors in the intelligence community as SBF said there was an open door to regulators and law enforcement agencies at FTX.
What we need to think about now is when the assets of FTX go up for auction, which they will, that not only the digital currencies and tokens as well as the licenses will be sold to some new party, but it will be the customers themselves, personal identifying information and the massive data mining that could have been or will be done with that data.
I was never an FTX user, I never created an account with FTX or FTX.us and I never wired any money to Alameda. Unfortunately, because of my longevity in the Bitcoin space, I used Blockfolio like many Bitcoin users before me to keep track of the amounts of Bitcoin I had in multiple locations and their total value. Now that data that I thought was private will be connected to KYC data of anyone I know, interacted with over a wire and any device they used, especially if through multiple connections it leads back to FTX in any way.
What we need to do now is ask the serious questions and not focus on the financial obligations or mishandlings of SBF and FTX. But we must ask who has this data? What has been done with this data and who will be owning this data in the future? The reality is FTT dissolving into nothing isn’t a “Force Majeure Event,” so most of the users are screwed.
Source: FTX Terms Of Service 2022
If this at all concerns you or involves you, I would suggest we all find the proper channels to protect ourselves from the worst case scenario from this fallout of data. This is the biggest problem with KYC and AML laws,because after all of this financial chaos, there is now a criminal-run exchange that is in possession of millions of people’s personal information about their devices, their homes, their financials and more, all available to the highest bidder.
Notes:
The Blockfolio TOS & Privacy Policy go to dead links on the FTX.com website, but I found a 2017 version.
You must sign in through Zendesk to view the missing Blockfolio TOS/PP as well as the new FTX TOS/PP which means I had to give an email and PPI to even see the documents.
This is a guest post by Morgan Rockwell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Just as the digital divide kept millions of people from accessing the advantages of the Internet a generation ago, there is a new “data divide” separating the haves from the have-nots.
The “haves” include people, companies, and organizations who have plenty of fresh data and have the technology and skills to use it to grow and thrive, while the “have-nots” are those who are operating with limited or no indication of what is effective and whose economic growth or social advancement is stunted as a result.
Businesses need to prioritize investment in data not just to drive revenue, but also to close the data divide–an essential step to solve social and environmental issues and boost the overall health of our society and economy.
Defining the divide
The data divide is about more than just access to data–it’s the growing disparity between the expanding use of data to create commercial value and the comparatively weak use of data to solve social and environmental challenges.
This is a clear and present problem. According to IDC, the spending on big data and analytics solutions exceeded $215 billion in 2021, with a third of that spending coming from just three sectors: banking, discrete manufacturing, and professional services. More than half of the spending came from just one country: the U.S.
Meanwhile, nonprofits lack access to data, technology, and skills. For instance, according to IBM, 67% of nonprofits lack expertise in the use of data analytics for their work.
In the public sector, some government agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Census Bureau, have implemented strong data strategies to drive greater impact. But most government organizations worldwide are facing enormous challenges in leveraging their data to deliver services effectively and efficiently. Major problems that could benefit from data analysis–such as climate change, health equity, and quality education–may not get the attention and skills they need.
How to close the gap
All sectors must mobilize to invest in bridging this divide. Organizations that play a role in the data ecosystem, or that are leaders in using data already, can help create accessible, transformational solutions by sharing tools, talent, and financial resources to make data skills more widely available to nonprofits. This can also include donating software licenses, training, and support to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions around the globe to foster data literacy and action.
Leadership can also come from the public sector. For example, the UN Global Pulse – Data for Climate Action is an unprecedented open innovation challenge to harness data science and big data from the private sector to fight climate change. This challenge aims to leverage private big data to identify revolutionary new approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation.
Closing the gap is not only about solving global crises–but data can also help tackle local problems. For instance, Operation Clean Sweep in Buffalo, NY used 311 call data to bring citizens closer together. It started by connecting residents with critical health and human services. During neighborhood visits, corps members also conduct cleanups, seal vacant homes, remove graffiti, and fill potholes–and the city uses data to determine which neighborhoods are most in need of services.
The data divide may not feel like an urgent problem to many, but it underlies some of the world’s most pressing problems. With so many global crises already unfolding, we need problem solvers from all sectors to harness the power of data for positive social and environmental impact. If we do not act decisively and with urgency, the have-nots will fall further and further behind–and all of us will feel the effects.
If we act now, we can empower individuals and organizations around the world to use data to solve a wide range of problems, from skill gaps to climate change. We might even get a few potholes fixed, too.
Kriss Deiglmeier is Splunk‘s Chief Social Impact Officer.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
The AI-powered iPhone app, PI.EXCHANGE has already been downloaded in over 100 countries during their beta launch.
Press Release –
updated: Oct 17, 2017
Melbourne, Australia, October 17, 2017 (Newswire.com)
– PI.EXCHANGE, the world’s first personal data bank, after recently announcing their beta application’s launch have reported that their first week of official beta marketing spend has surpassed all expectations and industry benchmarks by multiples. The company is experiencing average costs per installs of below $1 per person in a lot of countries and by all age groups, with downloads in 117 different countries around the world.
Traction & Growth Lead, Hersh Bhatt spoke of the strong initial traction saying, “Everyone in the PI.EXCHANGE family expected strong results as we believe we have a very strong product to offer. However, the near exponential growth at such a purposefully restricted budget is a surprise even to an optimist like myself. I strongly believe this shows the mass market is ready for a personal data economy and it will be our commitment as PI.EXCHANGE to be humankind’s reliable yet intelligent partner in all things personal data.”
“Everyone in the PI.EXCHANGE family expected strong results as we believe we have a very strong product to offer. However, the near exponential growth at such a purposefully restricted budget is a surprise even to an optimist like myself. I strongly believe this shows the mass market is ready for a personal data economy and it will be our commitment as PI.EXCHANGE to be humankind’s reliable yet intelligent partner in all things personal data”
Hersh Bhatt, Traction & Growth Lead
The company has confirmed that an Android version is in the works and they have assured fans that development will be accelerated for the Android version due to demand. The app not only promises individuals the ability to invest with and monetize their data but also offers a suite of free features including celebrity insights and personality comparisons, personal data visualization, social media personality analytics, location maps and likability insights that leverage sentiment analysis.
Media Contact: Hersh Bhatt Phone: +61 431699429 Email: Hersh.Bhatt@PI.EXCHANGE
PI.EXCHANGE allows all users to invest with and reap personalized insights from their passively generated data.
Press Release –
updated: Sep 26, 2017
MELBOURNE, Australia, September 26, 2017 (Newswire.com)
– The disruptive new PI.EXCHANGE app enables average individuals to create a free personal data bank vault. The vault has data constantly streamed into it from the sources users select and stores them in a form that is fully owned by the user. PI.EXCHANGE then uses this data to produce more valuable insights profiles that can be enjoyed by the user or anonymously sold to businesses, earning the user a royalty.
The app has already earned critical acclaim from social trendsetters:
Got to visit PI.EXCHANGE HQ a few weeks ago and thoroughly impressed with their great work.
Austin Levine, Professional Social Media Influencer and Fashion Model
“Got to visit PI.EXCHANGE HQ a few weeks ago and thoroughly impressed with their great work.”–Austin Levine, professional Social Media Influencer and Fashion Model (known as @officialtinno).
“Big things ahead!! PI.EXCHANGE is launching this sick app soon. Amazing to have the chance to sample it early. This app really does it all!” – Shiloh Magnolia Savage, professional Social Media Influencer, Fashion Model and Pilates/ Fitness instructor.
The premise of the app is simple at its core – every human being generates a ton of valuable data every day but never gets to benefit from it. PI.EXCHANGE created an app that allows people to safely store, enjoy and soon earn from all their data at no cost and with no effort.
The PI.EXCHANGE apps global beta is currently available on the Apple App Store with an Android version soon to follow.
With a fan base growing daily, PI.EXCHANGE encourages those that share its vision to improve the world through data by helping to spread the word about this new economy they are building. For more details please contact us at press@pi.exchange.
PI.EXCHANGE is a company that specializes in ethically extracting insights from personal data to empower individuals, businesses and the planet as a whole. The organization is heavily focused on unlocking barriers for innovation using human-based insights and sees the creation of a personal data economy as a crucial part of enabling trust and collaboration between businesses and consumers in an increasingly data-driven world.
