How Will You Prove You Are Who You Say You Are?
Here’s a little something I’d like you to think about. Are you really who you say you are? And, how do I know that I can trust you? Identity Theft is one of the most debilitating crimes a person can suffer for it strips away the very core of your own belief system and that of society’s belief in you as a ‘real’ person. Many don’t recover from the impact for years and yet we are very slack when it comes to protecting our identities and some businesses are doing very little to help us.
McDonalds in Perth have allowed their customers to be scammed of millions of dollars as a result of an organised theft using replacement scanners for EFTPOS cards in their stores. The dodgy devices were replaced and people who used the cards at various McDonalds stores in Perth discovered later that those devices enabled thieves to gain access to card details and pin numbers – to date an estimated $4 million dollars in thefts has occured according to the WA Police.
But the challenge gets deeper because now those details may have enabled criminals to build up the ‘100 Points’ target of identity that Banks and other businesses use to open accounts. And let me ask you this – when was the last time you asked your local Video Store to clean out its old records of ‘you’? Are you aware of what their data security measures are like? Do you shred those unasked for spam letters from credit card suppliers that have a good chunk of your personal information pre-printed or do you simply throw them out?
We need to be far more vigilant with the variety of personal information, how we use our credit cards and Direct Debit cards and we cannot rely on organisations where we shop, to have all their security bases covered. Sure the McDonalds case seems pretty lax, but at the end of the day, criminals will always look to discover weaknesses in how companies collect, use and store our personal information. Your identity is at stake – prove to me you are who you say you are
In thinking about the year ahead I’ve decided to call it the International Year of Resilience. With everything that appears to be going on in the world there’s unlikely to be any quick fixes and so I provide for you here below, my Top 10 Tips for building more resilience into your lives. If you…
Read More >The United Kingdom’s Committee on Climate Change has released a report that shows rising household energy costs are not caused by the apparent burden of environmental policies. Instead the core factor is increases in costs increases of Oil and Gas as the Energy resource sector taps into a ‘growth’ market. You can have a…
Read More >After a great although too brief trip to Islamabad in Pakistan, I joined Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin to discuss the idea of official reports for travelers and who you should believe. Sometimes we fear the unknown because we aren’t well enough informed. In the absence of any other information, the Official line is…
Read More >It’s taken me a while to get the Tourism Thinking piece together given the extensive travel this year that has enabled me to assess where Australia’s tourism is not getting things right. This update won’t paint the full picture (a couple of clients have first crack at this research) but it is important enough to…
Read More >I alert you from the outset that I’m about to make a massive leap of potentially an supportable scientific theory in discussing a potential Wildcard event. If you’re only interested in the concrete real stuff, head elsewhere after you get about half way. I’m going to make a massive leap first of all and then…
Read More >n this MP3 with Paul Dale on ABC Darwin radio we chat about the recent fly past of a large chunk of rock called Asteroid YU55, and what we might do as a species in managing a potential Asteroid impact. We also diverge into the concept of mining Asteroids for their mineral content as the…
Read More >The MP3 file below captures part two of our chat looking at the Future of Sex. Picking up on the theme of new technology that popped up towards the end of our first discussion in week one, here we move onto haptics and holographics and the extension of that technology from beyond the bedroom and…
Read More >Who’s Been Sleeping In My House? is a new Australian series presented by archaeologist Adam Ford that looks at the stories behind some of our old homes. Adam is the man behind the recent ‘Ned Kelly’ dig among other great archaeology finds here in Australia and the UK. As a futurist I’m always interested in…
Read More >The Association of Professional Futures is holding its first Virtual Gathering, following the sun from Europe, across North America and finishing in the Australia pacific zone. It kicks off tomorrow and links to the program and registration (it’s only $45 for guests for a program featuring some of the worlds most prominent futurists) You…
Read More >I join Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin radio where we continue our discussion about the future of sex. We consider three main areas in this session – smart phone applications; remote relationships and the combination of haptics and holographics as one the emerging means by which we’ll maintain physical contact. You can download the…
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