Anthea Turner How I See It...
Hello,
I had a ridiculous phone conversation this week with a well-known retailer. They had messed up my order and I simply wanted to know when I would be receiving my £90 faux log wall-mounted fire. I made the call hands free from the car so I asked the assistant if she would ping me the relevant details on an email.
“No, I can’t do that,” she said, “because of data protection.” I pointed out we weren’t talking matters of high security here; I just want confirmation of our conversation about my cheap fire. I asked her if she knew the data protection law she was quoting? No, she didn’t. “Well, how about I give you verbal permission to have my email address which actually you already have via your website sales to myself? Also according to your welcome message you’re recording this conversation for training purposes so you’re totally covered under the data protection law.” Answer was still no!
We live in a data driven world. It blows my mind to think that 300 billion emails a day are sent and whether we are ordering prescriptions, paying the gas bill, going through passport control or purchasing Viakal on Amazon, our digital footprint is everywhere making profiling a piece of cake.
DATA DILEMMA
For companies, it’s a pot of gold supposedly helping analysts to improve our lives. But do we care? Are you staying awake at night worried that your face has been digitally captured on numerous CCTV cameras? Well I am, and my conclusion is, as with all things, there’s good and bad but in My Weekly we always try and look at the positive.
Last year a friend of mine went missing. He had a bit of a crisis, walked out of the family home and completely disappeared. Or did he? You can only imagine the pole-axing fear his wife, daughters and friends went through. We were beside ourselves with worry but within four days the police, via his digital footprint, had scooped him up, delivered him home and probably saved his life.
So I’ve ceased caring who has my mobile number, email address, bra size or inside leg measurement. Data is part of our world now and that genie ain’t going back in the bottle! However, we must always be alert to rogue emails and texts and if it doesn’t sound right, it probably isn’t, so delete. Love, Anthea X