Californians are fond of using the politicial initiative process, sometimes for good and sometimes not. But this exercise in direct democracy can, at times, be a useful check on an incompetent or corrupt government.
So it’s time for Californians to pass an initiative protecting financial privacy, or at least going in that direction, now that the Legislature has again refused to do it. Visit this site for more information on the initiative.
Another issue: Before the RFID crowd puts little radio transmitters into everything we touch, we can start speaking up where it counts.
More on both of these matters in my Sunday column.
Comments
Posted by: Justin Hitt on July 13, 2003 05:00 PM
Side note: Wal*Mart already tracks the movement of all products through their locations from distribution to item placement on the shelf. This information is linked to a purchase group then individual transaction. If a check or credit card is used, then that purchase is linked against an individual.
Inventory management (even at this scale) is used by any retail establishing who uses discount card or loyalty programs. It reduces costs of delivery — plus the collected data helps develop an understanding of buying behavior that improves consumer choice.
Technically information about buying behavior is already available, but not shared between stores or brokered as a saleable item (like mailing lists.) Laws need to be put in place to prevent the brokering of customer identity behavors.
As a consumer it doesn’t bother me for a business to understand what I do in their stores, it is when they share this information I become concerned. In addition, we have all heard about credit cards being stolen, it’s in the news daily. Many companies can’t be trusted to provide adequate protection for this volume of data.
There is a balance to maintain, security must be a key concern at the point of data collection. It goes a long way to establishing a relationship of trust with buyers-and-sellers when the buyer knows facts about them will remain private.
Thank you for highlighting these privacy points in your writings.
Ps. Think privacy is a concern, just want till tracking customer interaction points get to the retail level as they are being used in B2B companies. The RFID chips would have made this easy to do.
Posted by: Fred Brehm on July 14, 2003 12:12 PM
Corporations are treated as individuals in many ways. Corporations don’t like to have their privacy (proprietary interests, trade secrets, etc.) violated. Perhaps we should push for individual privacy protection equal to corporate privacy protection.
Posted by: Justin Hitt on July 13, 2003 05:00 PM
Side note: Wal*Mart already tracks the movement of all products through their locations from distribution to item placement on the shelf. This information is linked to a purchase group then individual transaction. If a check or credit card is used, then that purchase is linked against an individual.
Inventory management (even at this scale) is used by any retail establishing who uses discount card or loyalty programs. It reduces costs of delivery — plus the collected data helps develop an understanding of buying behavior that improves consumer choice.
Technically information about buying behavior is already available, but not shared between stores or brokered as a saleable item (like mailing lists.) Laws need to be put in place to prevent the brokering of customer identity behavors.
As a consumer it doesn’t bother me for a business to understand what I do in their stores, it is when they share this information I become concerned. In addition, we have all heard about credit cards being stolen, it’s in the news daily. Many companies can’t be trusted to provide adequate protection for this volume of data.
There is a balance to maintain, security must be a key concern at the point of data collection. It goes a long way to establishing a relationship of trust with buyers-and-sellers when the buyer knows facts about them will remain private.
Thank you for highlighting these privacy points in your writings.
Ps. Think privacy is a concern, just want till tracking customer interaction points get to the retail level as they are being used in B2B companies. The RFID chips would have made this easy to do.