Wait a second, did I just sell my Identity?

It was innocent enough, I was at the cash register buying a book and the salesperson asked if I would like to give my postal code for a $5 credit on my next purchase. Why not, I thought to myself and I walked out of the store a happy customer. Or so I thought.

Next morning, I’m reading my morning paper and I see an article on how companies that know your postal code can do all kinds of things to you! Quite anxious, I went to our IT Guru, Mike, to see what I had just done. The conversation went something like this:

Me- “Mike, I gave a company my postal code. Did I just sell myself?”

Mike- “It depends. Did it feel good?”

Me- “Mike, I’m serious. I got a $5 credit and they got my postal code. What does this mean?”

Mike- “It means that you’re a very cheap …”

IT guys can really tell it, can’t they? It turns out that companies can do a lot with your postal code and also your IP address. Mike went on to explain that cyber space today is fraught with peril-

• Companies can obtain a wealth of information based on postal codes and build on them with information from credit bureaus, Stats Canada, media rating agency BBM and others
• Retail stores can hand over purchasing information from their loyalty programs. With this, they can build a rough profile that includes probable demographics such as age range, education level and income, credit information, past purchase behavior, credit information, media consumption habits and preferences, as well as attitudes about everything from politics to technology
• Finding someone's IP address is like finding your phone number, an IP address can be used to find the general location where you live
• They can take your name from Facebook and put that into a search engine, and potentially find out more information through careful deduction. With an IP address, companies can do negative things attacking your computer (if you don’t have a fire wall) but they can also target you for specific marketing that you may not want)

I then thought about our own company because we spent hours and hours at hereiammobile implementing security measures and policies to protect our customer data. So I went to our legal counsel, Tom, to ensure we are doing all we can in terms of securing customer information. My conversation went something like:

Me- “I think I just sold my identity at a book shop”.

Tom- “You didn’t fall for a free credit scam, did you?”

Me- “I thought it was innocent till Mike told me what they could do with it.”

Tom- “Was she pretty?”

(I digress- the last part he really didn’t say - lawyers don’t do humor). But we did get into an earnest discussion of the rights and obligations of what good companies should be doing. He said- “we are very stringent in terms of our Privacy Policy and our corporate obligation of not divulging any personal information. In fact, we’ve built in extra security for customers accessing their information”. Tom went on to say that it is recognized globally that cyber space needs to tighten security. In Canada, this is being addressed at the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s office and your privacy is safeguarded under Canada's Privacy Act.

So, am I happy to have the $5 credit? Not really- with a very simple question, I got suckered. In hindsight, it’s an intrusion to my personal identity and I need to be more prudent in how and when I give out information. It’s a lesson hard learned. I hope this anecdote is a reminder for all of us to be careful when it comes to divulging personal information.