Hatrack River Forum: why do people have privacy statements if they're not going to follow it?

This is topic why do people have privacy statements if they're not going to follow it? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by slacker (Member # 2559) on :

article

Northwest Airlines on Friday acknowledged that they gave the government customer data for over 10 million customers from October to December 2001.

The type of information given was things like names, credit cards (WTF would they want that???), addresses and telephone numbers.

What's scary is that they aren't the first airlines to do this. JetBlue did the same thing last year, and some of the results were posted on the web. The TSA had bought other databases and were combining data to profile people. Things like SSN's, birthdates, mother's maiden names, etc were found in the results.

You might ask what was Northwest's response. As far as their concerned, they did nothing wrong, because they didn't sell the data (they just gave it away).

quote:
The company said it did not inform any passengers that it shared data with NASA. It also said it did not believe that the data-sharing violated its privacy policy.

. "Our privacy policy commits Northwest not to sell passenger information to third parties for marketing purposes," the company said in its statement Friday . "This situation was entirely different, as we were providing the data to a government agency to conduct scientific research related to aviation security and we were confident that the privacy of passenger information would be maintained."

Well, looks like I won't be flying with them ever again. I don't like people doing things like that without at least telling me and giving me the option to opt out.

Edit: found the test data for JetBlue. Check out pg 20 - linky

[ January 18, 2004, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: slacker ]

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

I can't remember specifically,but I seem to recall that there is something coming down the pike where a person's name is run through a database before they are allowed to get on a plane.

Posted by Argèn†~ (Member # 4528) on :

We could always blame it on Patriot Act II.

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

I have a better solution. A couple years a go, I was listening to El Rushbo. The topic of discussion was some raise in taxes that someone or other was proposing. Rush got a call from some guy who said, why don't we make it a choice? Let people who want to pay higher taxes pay higher taxes. They can mark it off on their income tax form. Let those who do not pay the lower taxes.

Rush thought this was an excellent idea.

I propose a similiar solution for civil liberties. All those people who want the government to tap your lines and keep tabs on you for your protection, please sign up for it. The rest of us will struggle along as best we can.

[ January 18, 2004, 06:16 PM: Message edited by: Storm Saxon ]

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8504-2004Jan11.html

There it is.

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :

quote:
I propose a similiar solution for civil liberties. All those people who want the government to tap your lines and keep tabs on you for your protection, please sign up for it. The rest of us will struggle along as best we can.

Seperate from the argument about whether or not such things are a good idea, and uncertain whether or not you're serious...

This is pretty dumb. People don't support things like this because they want the government to be able to stop them if they move to do something wrong, it's everyone else they worry about.

Such actions wouldn't even work on a practical scale if they only applied to people who signed up for them, whether or not they work on an ethical scale.

Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :

Incidentally, I'm not surprised Rush put his seal of approval on the tax idea. Talk about stupid. Who goes out of their way to pay extra taxes? I suppose that was your point, Storm. *smacks forehead*

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

[ROFL]

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

You know, none of the articles I've seen so far have questioned at all why NASA is involved in this. If our space agency is strapped for cash and the human resources necessary to carry out its primary mission successfully, what the heck is it doing playing with personal information in a "data-mining" trial?

I realize they might be specialists at handling large amounts of data, but frankly, I don't think this was a good use of their manpower and seems like it must violate some charter or another.

Unless...of course...all those satellites they monitor are really pointed back at Earth and gathering information about all of us!!!

[Angst]

Posted by slacker (Member # 2559) on :

If I remember right, the satellites you're worried about, Bob, are controlled by Major League Baseball.

Now, do you want to hear the whole, nasty truth, or would you rather see me hit some dingers for you?

Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :

I would be curious why NASA is involved as well. Maybe the writer meant the NSA?