Online game teaches us how exposed our personal data can be

IS your personal data at risk? A new online game helps you understand how exposed and how valuable giving away your information can be.

Data Dealer helps you understand how exposed your personal information really is. Picture: Supplied

DID you know your precious personal data could be at risk every time you go shopping or go to top-up the fake tan? A new game is here to help us understand how vulnerable we are.

The online game called "Data Dealer" is set to launch this week that helps make you aware just how exposed to risks you are, how much personal information you could be spilling and where, how it can be sold and how significant even the smallest piece of information can be a "goldmine" to some.

Reported by AFP, the Austrian-designed game has a Farmville feel to it where players get to collect thousand of make-believe profiles coming across characters such as a nurse who will sell patients' records to supplement her salary, or the manager of a tanning salon who can be convinced to hand over his client list for a couple of hundred dollars.

What's contained in these records is an eye-opening list revealing dietary habits, birthdays, names, addresses and buying habits. There's even a dating website that you can obtain the most personal of data such as first sexual encounter or sexual orientation.

The player can then sell this information to a major employer, security agency or rental authority in a bid to earn cash and become a data dealing mogul.

Data Dealer highlights how sites can hold personal information that could be sold. Picture: Supplied

Who'd have known? You do now, and that's the point. Marketing companies could have a field day with such information, and that's what Data Dealer developers are hoping will be brought to your attention.

"I don't think most people can really imagine what it means not only to collect but also to collate and to combine all these massive amounts of personal data," said Wolfie Christl, one of the game's designers.

The not-for-profit project has been backed by the Austrian government and the City of Vienna and will be available online for free.

So, before you willingly put down all your most personal data down in a questionnaire in the hope to win a free holiday, Data Dealer hopes it might "boost people's awareness, and with more awareness they might then act differently."