July 13. A View on Security

We keep comparing things in UK and US. It struck us how differently privacy is handled. In US, my perception was that UK is dead serious about respecting the privacy of its residents/visitors. It certainly is very conscious about ensuring that the data does not get outside of UK as much as possible. On the other hand, the recent scandalous exposure by Snowden of mass scale tracking by the US government had upset many people in US that their privacy was violated.  In contrast, it appeared that UK had figured out how to do it right to protect its citizens.

In reality it seems quite different. Your personal info is requested by various entities on an ongoing basis and you have no visibility into what happens to it next. For example, when we tried to buy tickets to Eurotunnel our credit card was not accepted. I called the company and they’ve asked to email the scan of my passport and credit card. That would be unheard of in US. The email bounced. They apologized and offered a few other email addresses. I am not sure where my passport info is at and what will be done with it. To use a free WI-FI, Starbucks asks for your address and mobile cell phone number before granting access.

Open Cloud, another free WI-FI in London,  wants your date of birth, accompanied by your mother’s maiden name or first pet’s name, typically the info banking entities would be interested in. Finally, an example that just killed us.  Yesterday we went shopping to mega Sainsbury and noticed that they have paid parking. Strange and annoying. .. But cashier had asked us for a receipt from parking and said that they refund the parking fee. We said thanks, but why in the world?? There are no homes close by to park resident cars illegally. She said simply to know how long you were there.  It is pretty intrusive and not really insightful.

At the end of the day they may say that they will not use your data in the way you don’t want them to but why do collect it in the first place. After writing this I thought that others may have a similar perception and found this () and more (). Any even more here check out the DNA tidbit. Supposedly UK even uses some of that snooped US data for its purposes.  Can't comment on the validity of these sources - just having the same convo string. In retrospect, US may not having it so bad.

I understand that UK is a major hub handling a lot of travelers. And statistically, there is a pretty high chance that unsavory elements will make evil plans. But realistically I don’t expect that UK has enough bandwidth to go through all that data. So the chances are data collected is accessed selectively (or kept for that purpose) and that could be a violation of one’s privacy. So, if want an example of a big brother state, it is a pretty good one. But I don’t want to sound negative and all that. At least it means we have greater security here, right?

P.S. Privacy aside it is pretty nice to be living here :)