Personal data security

[Bob]

A couple of months ago my credit card supplier contacted me about suspicious transactions on my card - cash requests from Nigeria Apparently the fraudster had correctly provided some of my personal details. Now, I have either shredded (and then composted) or burnt any unwanted document with name, address etc on it for several years so it's unlikely, though not impossible, to have been a personal lapse.

Last night at the Jack Bloor it struck me that we enter personal details (name, address, emergency contact number, car registration) on race entry forms. What happens to those sheets after the race? Are they destroyed or simply binned? Note that I'm not suggesting that any race organiser was responsible for my case.

In this day and age of computerisation and databases surely it should be possible to simply give your FRA or English Athletics registration number to the organiser and for your details to be automatically retrieved. It wouldn't work for unattached runners obviously and it would mean that every organiser would need to have one or more laptops at their events to handle registrations. However, anyone who has a sport ident dibber will know that you can simply provide the dibber ID and your details are pulled up.

Good idea or a non-starter?

[freakazoid]

Good idea or a non-starter?

Organising races can be hard enough without this. Who's going to pay for the laptop?

Presumably the laptop would contain the database. What if that got nicked?

Non-starter for me. Sorry.

[Pilgrim]

Why not simply shred the entry forms once they're finished with?

[Bob]

Why not simply shred the entry forms once they're finished with?

Maybe they already are, though there is software available to "reconstitute" shredded documents hence why I shred *and* compost.

Maybe it is just paranoia but it's the one thing I do where I willingly give out personal details in an unsecure environment. Any security is only as good as the weakest link and the weakest link is invariably human.

[Pilgrim]

We'll all have to use disappearing ink on the entry forms!

[Derby Tup]

I think degrees of personal info on us all is freely available I've got two bits of junk mail here. One from BT addressed to the 'occupier' but another is from BUPA and addressed with my full name. I've never had any dealings with BUPA so how do they know who I am and where I live? Is it from the electoral register or has someone sold them my details?

[Bob]

Details on the electoral roll/register may be sold by local authorities to companies. Since a case in the High Court a few years ago there must now be an opt-out box on the form you are sent to renew/confirm your details. Make sure you tick this. The Phone Book is another list that is up for sale and you can ask for your details not to be published - it's not ex-directory as directory enquiries will still give your number out if asked but you don't appear in the book or on the database that is sold on.

Sign up to the mail preference service to catch those companies that use older mailing lists with your details on them. However this only applies to mail addressed to you in person so generic junk mail like "To the Occupier" won't get stopped. Similarly you can sign up to the telephone preference service to stop cold calling.

We get very little junk mail or cold calls after doing the above.

[Pilgrim]

I think degrees of personal info on us all is freely available I've got two bits of junk mail here. One from BT addressed to the 'occupier' but another is from BUPA and addressed with my full name. I've never had any dealings with BUPA so how do they know who I am and where I live? Is it from the electoral register or has someone sold them my details?

Most likely from the electoral register. You have the option of not having your details on the edited register (which is available to the public/companies). The full register has all the names but is not available to the public.

[owmeknee]

when i returned from jack bloor last night i had one of those dodgy emails from some begging nigerian asking for my bank account details ,needless to say,i didnt supply said info.what worries me is that the email came from a private message from this website ! anyone else get one ? Admin can you offer explanation ?

[wheezing donkey]

OMK,
I've never had such a letter. BUT, a couple of years ago I was 'googling' something or other ( can't, for the life of me, remember what ) when Google took me to an e-mail, between two private individuals who were unknown to me, who had been discussing the very subject that I was enquiring about. I am now very careful about anything that I incorporate into a 'private' e-mail.

As for Bob's original suggestion, is it not just re-inventing a square wheel? If your paper records in the hands of a bona-fide race organiser might be suspect, are not your virtual records on a computer data-base just as vulnerable, whether that be SportIdent's database or the FRA's database ? Absolutely nothing personal inferred against Martin or Brett.

I often shred & compost, but I do occassionally get the 'barbie' out to shred & burn!