Business Values Our Data. Why Don’t We?

Organisations love information about you. Everywhere you go, it’s sign up here, tell us about this and what do you think about that? Trust me, businesses aren’t interested in you for altruistic reasons: they either want to sell you stuff, or sell your information to other businesses who want to sell you stuff. Your information has value to them and they want it.

An email from a major UK hotel chain arrived in my inbox the other day, offering me an annual birthday gift in exchange for updating my profile with my date of birth. I imagine the gift will be a discount on a hotel stay around the time of my birthday but the email didn’t say. Perhaps not to be sniffed at but birth dates are often used as part of security procedures around bank accounts so it’s worth being cautious.

I think we’ve all become aware over the past few years how easily it is for big names to be hit with a data breach – Equifax, Yahoo, British Airways – and a hotel chain seems like a juicy target too. Wouldn’t be the first either. Lots of lovely customer information with credit card numbers.

Consider too that factual personal information like dates of birth can’t be changed. If a password is stolen as part of a data breach, the solution is to change the password. Credit card number lifted? A new credit card arrives in the post. There’s nothing you can do if your date of birth is taken. It’s on your birth certificate.

It’s not worth it. If the hotel chain wants my age band and month of birth, I’ll happily give it up for a discount, but when it comes to day, month and year, I think I’ll pass. You should too.

Photo by Rene Böhmer on Unsplash.