What strangers can learn from your political donation
Search your name in the Federal Election Commission’s contribution database or on a campaign finance site such as OpenSecrets.org. If you have given enough to trigger federal disclosure requirements, you may be surprised by how much information can be connected to your donation. Depending on the record, that can include your name, mailing address, employer, occupation, donation amount and the political committee that received your money.
This is not a data breach. It is part of federal campaign finance disclosure law. And once information about you is public, it can potentially be combined with personal details found elsewhere online. Here’s what your political donation can reveal, how that information can be used and what you can do to reduce the rest of your exposure.
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DEM FUNDRAISING GIANT MAKES DAMNING ADMISSION AS GOP PROBES FOREIGN DONATION ALLEGATIONS
Federal campaigns generally must itemize an individual’s contributions once that person’s contributions exceed $200 in the aggregate during the applicable election cycle. For PACs and party committees, the reporting period can be based on the calendar year.
An itemized federal contribution can include:
One contribution may not seem revealing on its own. The privacy concern grows when those details can be connected with information already available through people-search sites, public records and data brokers.
Pay particular attention to your employer and occupation. A people-search profile may already include addresses and relatives, while a campaign finance record can add another verified detail about where you work or what you do. Want to see how much of your personal information is already exposed online? Use the free data exposure scanner at CyberGuy.com to check.
A campaign finance record alone provides only part of the picture. Other public sources and people-search sites may reveal much more. Sites such as Spokeo, Whitepages and BeenVerified can contain address histories, possible relatives, phone numbers, email addresses and property information. When information from several sources lines up, someone researching you may be able to build a much more detailed profile. Here is how those pieces can connect.
Names are rarely unique. An address, employer or occupation can help distinguish you from another person with the same name. That makes publicly available information useful for confirming that someone has found the right person.
Once someone has your name and location, people-search services may make it easier to identify possible relatives. Your political donation record does not normally list your family members. However, information found elsewhere can connect your identity with a spouse, adult child, parent or other relative. That can create opportunities for impersonation scams and highly personalized phishing attempts.
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Knowing where you work gives a scammer another detail that can make an email, text or phone call feel legitimate. A phishing message that mentions your actual employer or professional role can be more convincing than a generic message because it contains information you recognize. That is why limiting the amount of personal information available across the web can reduce what criminals have to work with.
Scammers frequently imitate legitimate organizations, charities and fundraising groups. The FTC warns that fraudulent fundraisers may use familiar-sounding names, pressure people to act quickly or falsely claim someone donated before. There is also an important legal protection around federal campaign finance data. Information copied or obtained from FEC reports about individual contributors cannot legally be sold or used to solicit political or charitable contributions or for commercial purposes. Criminals do not always follow the law, of course. Still, you should be suspicious of any unexpected fundraising request that seems unusually familiar with your personal history.
Using an online fundraising platform does not automatically make a federal contribution private. For earmarked federal contributions exceeding $200, reporting requirements can include the contributor’s name, mailing address, employer, occupation, date and amount.
State campaign finance rules are different. Disclosure thresholds and the information made public vary by state, so a contribution that is not itemized under federal rules could still be subject to separate state reporting requirements.
This is an important limitation to understand. A data removal service generally cannot erase legally required government records such as federal campaign finance filings. That means an FEC filing is not something a removal service can simply delete. What these services can address is the personal information surrounding that public record.
Your campaign finance record might identify your name, mailing address, employer and occupation. Meanwhile, data brokers may have phone numbers, email addresses, relatives, previous addresses and other personal information. Removing those additional profiles can make it harder for someone to connect separate pieces of information about you into one detailed profile.
Some data removal services automatically send opt-out requests to data brokers and continue checking for information that may reappear. Others also offer custom removal requests for websites where your personal information is exposed. However, legal and technical restrictions still apply, especially when the information comes from government records or other sources that are required to remain public.
You can also submit removal requests yourself. The process takes more time, but reducing the amount of personal information spread across people-search sites and data brokers can make it harder for strangers or scammers to build a detailed profile about you. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
Here are several steps I would take to see what information about you is already exposed.
Start by searching your name through the FEC’s campaign finance records and OpenSecrets.org. Look closely at what information is associated with your contributions. Do not assume every result belongs to you, especially if you have a common name.
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For federal candidate committees, individual contributions generally become itemized once your aggregate contributions exceed $200 during an election cycle. PAC and party committee reporting rules can use a calendar-year threshold instead. Also remember that some committees voluntarily disclose contributions below the amount they are required to itemize.
State disclosure laws vary significantly. Your state may use a different reporting threshold or disclose different information than the federal system, so check the campaign finance database maintained by your state election authority.
Do not assume a message is legitimate because it mentions a candidate, organization or contribution you recognize. Instead of clicking a link in an unexpected email or text, visit the organization’s official website independently. Also be wary of anyone pressuring you to donate immediately or asking you to pay through gift cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency.
You may not be able to remove a legally required campaign finance filing, but you can reduce the additional information available about you through data brokers and people-search sites. You can submit opt-out requests yourself or use a data removal service to handle many of those requests for you. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
I think the surprising part here is how much information can become connected to something as simple as making a political contribution. Federal disclosure rules can make your name, mailing address, employer, occupation and contribution history publicly available once you cross the reporting threshold. You cannot erase a legally required FEC filing with a data removal service, but you can reduce the other information surrounding it. I would search my own name, see what is visible and then work on removing the people-search and data broker profiles that make it easier for strangers or scammers to fill in the rest of the picture.
How much personal information do you think should become public when someone makes a political contribution? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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