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
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…
Read More >In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on radio ABC Darwin we discuss the future of sex. This is the first of potentially three conversations where we look at the increasing reach of technology way beyond current online match making sites, the social pressures driving the use of technology as well as the use of technology…
Read More >There’s been a bit of discussion in recent months about a softening housing market around Australia but I wonder how much of it is more indicative of unrealistic expectations on behalf of sellers? In futures work we think in terms of Assumptions and Expectations and aim to test our understanding and so I offer this…
Read More >Unfortunately it looks like my main email address has been hijacked and has been used to send out a series of spam emails. I’d like to apologise to anyone who has received some junk email purporting to come from ‘desiredfutures’ with a series of html links asking you to go and have a look. You…
Read More >Given the amount of plastic swimming in our oceans and rivers and the volume littering our land, the NT Government is aiming to introduce compulsory returns legislation on soft-drink bottles (as happens in South Australia), something that has apparently raised the ire of bottler, Coca Cola. Although they’ve recently backed away from their initial statement…
Read More >Deciphering the hype from reality with regard to drug use can be a challenge for most of us. Professor David Nutt in the UK has given me permission to post a link to the paper he has co-authored with Ruth Weissenborn that looks at the reality of a comparison of harm caused by two common…
Read More >Vicki Kerrigan and I finished off our discussion about the Future of Clothing on ABC Darwin yesterday. We discussed invisibility style cloaks, singlets that monitor your heart rate and stress levels, runners that capture electricity to power your wearable electronics and a few philosophical questions regarding our ability to deal with stress. The file…
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