Data Privacy
Data Privacy: Many people think they control their personal data. They scan loyalty cards, use discount codes, and allow their phones to track their location. These actions seem harmless. However, many unknown companies collect this information. They combine small pieces of data and create detailed profiles without the user’s knowledge or permission.
Digital Oligarchy
A small group of powerful companies controls this system. This is similar to an oligarchy, where a few groups work for their own benefit. In the digital world, these companies know more about ordinary people than many governments. Privacy laws claim to protect users. In reality, they often protect these companies.
Data Brokers
The data broker industry drives this system. Data brokers collect credit card records, shopping habits, GPS locations, and purchase histories. They combine this information into detailed profiles. Then they sell these profiles to businesses and other buyers. The industry earns about $200 billion every year. It has shaped many privacy laws. As a result, these laws appear to protect people but actually help the industry continue its business.
Privacy Challenges
Many privacy laws, such as Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA, give people the right to delete their personal data or stop its collection. This sounds like a good solution. In practice, it is very difficult. People must first find every company that holds their data. Hundreds of companies may have it. They must contact each company, complete different forms, verify their identity, and sometimes provide a government-issued ID. This process can take weeks. Even then, the data often returns.
Unfair Burden
The situation is worse for abuse victims. Many data brokers ask them to provide extra personal information as proof of harm. Victims must share more sensitive information with the same companies they want to escape. Instead of helping them, the system causes more emotional pain.
The real problem is not that people fail to complete the process. The law places the burden on ordinary people. They have the least power. Large companies collect and sell personal information. Yet they face very few ongoing responsibilities. Individuals must handle a task they cannot realistically complete.
Legal Weaknesses
Privacy laws have another major weakness. They focus on protecting individual pieces of information. These include names, phone numbers, addresses, and identification numbers. The laws assume that harm only occurs when someone shares these details. This assumption no longer matches today’s digital world.
AI Profiling
Modern technology can rebuild a person’s profile without using direct personal information. Artificial intelligence studies online behavior, viewing habits, shopping patterns, family connections, previous addresses, and device signals. It can predict a person’s religion, political views, health condition, and location. People may agree to share small pieces of information. They never agree to the complete profile that companies create from it.
State Surveillance
In countries like Pakistan, the problem becomes more serious. The government also benefits from this system. It can obtain personal data from private companies for surveillance. Therefore, it has little reason to regulate data brokers. Stronger laws would also limit the state’s access to personal information.
When governments and powerful companies work in the same direction, ordinary people lose control over their data. The system protects those with power instead of those whose information it collects.
Better Solution
Some legal experts have suggested a better solution. Law professors Chinmayi Sharma, Thomas Kadri, and Sam Adler propose a central system. A person would submit only one request. Every data broker would then remove that person’s information from all records and supply chains. This system would make privacy protection much easier.
De-identification
Experts also support de-identification. Companies should make personal data impossible to reconnect to an individual. They should also prevent anyone from rebuilding the data through other methods. This approach shifts responsibility from ordinary people to the companies that collect and profit from personal information.
Privacy Promise
Today, many technology companies promise users greater privacy. For example, Meta promotes its AI glasses with the slogan, “Designed for privacy, controlled by you.” However, this promise will remain incomplete. Privacy laws must place greater responsibility on powerful data companies instead of ordinary users. Only then can people gain real control over their personal information.
Published in Dawn, 10th July 2026
