Privacy

This short and sweet statement comes from PayPal’s very own privacy statement. PayPal is an internet-based company that facilitates transactions between two parties. The nature of the business involves sensitive matters such as data mining and privacy.

As stated by the article “Policy Matters Now and in the Future: Net Neutrality, Corporate Data Mining, and Government Surveillance,” every business that collects with the sensitive information of its consumers should notify its consumers, provide options, allow access to data, and ensure the security of said data. PayPal’s privacy statement meets each of those objectives in clear, easy to follow language.

In short, the company gathers and stores a plethora of private information. This includes but is not limited to a consumer’s full name, email, Social Security numbers, addresses, bank account information, financial information, and legal government identification in addition to socioeconomic demographics like nationality or age.

While the extent of the information collected may come as surprise to some it is simply the new norm. Journalist Bernard Marr notes that as technology advances, the society owns less and shares more. In particular, we find ourselves sharing more data with companies that do not necessarily provide services but connect us with service providers as Uber, TaskRabbit, and PayPal do. The reason why the latter collects so much data from its consumers is to comply with state and federal laws, enhance overall user experience and business practices, reduce fraud and identity theft, and measure the effectiveness of their targeted ads and marketing. Unlike, tech giants like Facebook or Google, PayPal does not profit off of user data.

“We do not sell your personal data.”

PayPal Privacy Statement, Section VI

The information gathered stems from and/or is shared with users, partners, service providers, and financial institutions. Once stored, the data is protected by “firewalls, data encryption, and physical access controls at [PayPal’s] data center.”

The company places a huge emphasis on the data being personally owned by the user and allows its users to choose how it is collected and which third-party services can access it as well as how PayPal should communicate any pressing matters to the user. However, the privacy statement also acknowledges that while users can block cookies on most other sites, PayPal bypasses the “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) feature. Moreover, anytime PayPal services are used, regardless of logging in or creating an account, that data is recorded.