FEBRUARY 6 — Happy Chinese New Year, dearest readers! The gods have decided to rain pineapple tarts on me and I hope they were as generous to you.
A reader emailed me with a question: “As far as personal data security is concerned, how can we prevent our details from getting into the wrong hands when we have to give our name, address, telephone number and identity card number for a myriad number of mundane matters?”
Said reader also said he wondered just what happened to all that data that is collected.
Let me answer the second question first. Customer data is usually collected for a purpose, usually for either future direct marketing efforts or for in-house research.
The good news is that it is unlikely your supermarket loyalty programme is selling your data to third-parties. However, the bad news is there is no guarantee that data is safe.
Data privacy and security awareness is very low in Malaysia. It doesn’t help that customers often skip reading the fine print and don’t know just what they’re signing off in regards to their personal information.
Now back to the original question. The sad news is there is really no way to 100 per cent prevent your data from going to the wrong hands aside from changing your name and moving to a remote mountain where there are telemarketers or Netflix.
Here are a few handy tips you can keep in mind before you decide to hand over your data:
1. Don’t give your actual birthday. Pick a fake birthday — don’t make it too hard on yourself. If say you were born on the 31st of March, maybe make your fake birthday the 1st.
2. If the form insists on collecting too much data beyond your basic name and phone number, decline. Be especially wary of forms insisting on details such as your mother’s maiden name for instance.
3. Consider taking stock of who has access to your personal data. Do you really need 10 different loyalty cards for 10 different supermarkets? Perhaps it’s time to cull said extraneous accounts.
Like it or not, protecting your personal information requires due diligence and vigilance. Make sure to check your bank accounts regularly and quickly highlight to your bank suspicious transactions.
In the end the only way you can try to protect yourself is by staying informed, asking advice from trustworthy sources and caution, always.
May your data be safe and your telemarketer cold calls be few this 2019.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
