Opinion: Personal information crosses enemy lines

AOL, my chosen Internet provider, made a little error recently that broadcasted 20 million search requests made by 658,000 subscribers for the entire Internet to pick through. That errant AOL keystroke meant that Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow from Lilburn, Ga., discovered her Internet searches about pet incontinence, numb fingers and single men were all featured in a front-page story in The New York Times.

All of us should have been concerned when two teenagers stole a laptop containing personal information about 26.5 million military veterans. The really distressing news is the laptop was in the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee. That’s right, on the coffee table with the TV Guide and stale pizza.

In our mania for just-in-time technology, we also are throwing open the doors to our bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms and ethical closets.

Am I interested in going back to keeping ledgers with No. 2 pencils and erasure dust? No. At the same time, we have to ask ourselves if we are ready to trade convenience for intimate exposure.

Moore’s Law is at work here. Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, said every time we double the data we can cram on a single microchip, we also double our knowledge … and ethical responsibility. Is it really that far-fetched to assume we will be arguing with a recalcitrant Hal (the computer in the movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey”)? Have you tried to do business with a voice-recognition receptionist at the end of an 800 number?

If you think my circuits are all wet, consider this: A thief last month stole a U.S. Transportation Department laptop with data, including Social Security numbers, for about 133,000 Florida residents. None of the information was encrypted.

Just a week before the Florida heist, Unisys, a Virginia contractor, reported one of its desktop computers was missing. It never showed up. Unisys then gave us the bad news: Vital, personal information for about 38,000 veterans was sitting in the brain of that computer. There have been no arrests or leads in locating that information.

These are not isolated instances. If you have been reading the “small stories” on the back page of your newspaper, you know personal data has been lifted from the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a Hampton, Va., civil court, the Nebraska treasurer’s office and a Poughkeepsie, N.Y., medical center.

The sum total of this really bad news is that in 2005 more than 55 million of us probably had some strange person tramping through our personal stuff. I do not know about you, but I feel violated.

So, what can we do?

First, every time a vendor gives you the opportunity to electronically check a box whether you want a transaction shared with a third party, leave the box empty.

Second, make a written request to your present vendors that your personal information not be communicated to any other businesses. File-sharing is big business. Ask for written confirmation that your request has been received and will be honored.

Third, be careful about giving out your e-mail address. When you subscribe to a journal, buy a new car or open a new bank account, there normally will be a line to provide your e-mail address. Your e-mail location is another portal for some nefarious person to unlock your identity.

Fourth, immediately contact your bank or other financial institution and ask what steps they are taking to protect your information and whether or not the data is encrypted. Encryption is the process of electronically “garbling” your personal life so if the information is stolen, the person at the other end will not be able to read it.

Fifth, look around your workplace. Can anyone take home or download sensitive personal data? It is inconceivable to me that a staff person could walk out of the Department of Veterans Affairs with a laptop strewn with the intimate details of 26.5 million people. What is the “stupid quotient” in our workplaces?

Finally, and this is a new request for candidates seeking public office, we should insist people who represent us in Washington and Jefferson City make the protection of our identities an essential part of their job descriptions. Unfortunately, the government wins the award for letting the world shuffle through our personal data.

I like my computer. I like writing this column anywhere in the world and with a keystroke sending it in nanoseconds. I like instantaneously contacting my client base. I like voicemail, e-mail and EBSCO (the Library’s electronic answer to hours and hours of researching the Reader’s Periodical Guide).

I do not like you or anyone else rummaging through my personal life.

Cal LeMon of Executive Enrichment Inc. solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. He can be reached at execenrichment@aol.com.[[In-content Ad]]