When signing up for our new place, part of the application asked us for our SIN number. Laura's dad made a big deal of them not needing it, and he was right. There is no need for places to ask for and keep your SIN. It's an easy way for people with "customer" data to link it across db's and figure out way more about you then you would have thought possible.
Tonight Laura and I were trying to get a phone line from bell and it was asking all kinds of info that I can't see them needing like student numbers (school and grad date), SIN number, driver's licence, ... Stuff that we really weren't comfortable giving to them, especially without the use of https.
What personal info do you give out? Do you have a comfort level, or could you just care less? I didn't really used to care, but now I'm working on web apps I wonder just why they need this, and how secure it really is.
I guess i never really pay attention to keeping my personal info private. Maybe i should.
ReplyDeleteBut, more importantly, i'd like to cure you and all the other people who(m) say "i could care less". The (sarcastic) statement goes "i couldN'T care less", as in you give NO care to it, so you couldN'T care any less than you do now. By saying "i could care less", you are saying that you DO care, to some degree, about it and therefore could care less than what you do, which makes no sense for your purpose.
Get it straight!
Thinking about it, i'm sure that they ask you all this personal info because it will allow them to more easily find you if you snake off on your bill. It probably saves them the money of hiring a PI of some sort.
ReplyDeleteConversely, if you know they have this information about you then you are less likely to sneak off.
ReplyDeletePIs don't even need a SIN, you're just making their job easier (my step-dad has been a PI).