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
You’d think that given a focus on the future, you’d ask specialists in the future to have some input, and whilst that didn’t occur for the PM’s Summit in Canberra over the weekend, some of Australia’s Futurists had already done the leg work to contribute their thoughts on the future of Australia. That report is…
Read More >Some of Australia’s leading futurists gathered in Melbourne in March to provide a specialist Futures approach to addressing the Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra. The outcome of that Summit and the development that subsequently followed has led to the creation of the report ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’ that has worked through each of the ten…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will meet with eminent ABC radio presenter Jon Faine on Wednesday the 16th of April to discuss the outcomes of the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra on the weekend With a focus on the future of Australia it would be only natural…
Read More >A group of leading Australian Futurists gathered over the weekend to consider the 10 core themes set to be tackled at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra in April. Convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber, the 2020 Australia Futurists Summit utilised some of the advanced facilitation and strategy development techniques as a…
Read More >As preparations continue for the Prime Minister Rudd’s ‘1000 heads’ ideas summit in Canberra in April, a group of Australia’s leading futurists are gathering in Melbourne this weekend for the ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’. The futurists attending the summit work across Australia, in corporate, not for profit and Government agencies in a variety of fields…
Read More >A few thoughts on what steps could be taken to overcome the ‘treat everyone like a nail’ approach that Interest Rate rises seems to do. Check out the idea under the ‘Latest Focus’ section Interest Rate Rises are going to penalise too many people who don’t deserve to lose their homes
Read More >Marcus Barber offers his thoughts on How to Stop Japanese Whaling in its Tracks and suggests that raiding boats won’t do the job. Instead he suggests that the key to negotiating with the Japanese is to have the Japanese people do the work. And to encourage them to do so we must begin to talk…
Read More >If an ‘Inconvenient Truth’ raised the profile of global warming to the general population, it appears that a willingness by political leaders to take appropriate action to mitigate the possible ramifications is still very much lacking. It is such a pity. No one who holds the Global Warming scenario close to heart wants to be…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will join Tim Cox on 774 ABC as part of the conversation hour next week Tim is filling in for Jon Faine whilst he takes a well deserved break and Marcus will join him for the conversation hour kicking off at 11am on Thursday the 13th of December, where they’ll discuss…
Read More >At the AustForesight 2007 Conference, Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber and fellow Futurist Steve Tighe presented their take on what is required to enable futurists to be seen as more relevant to the Corporate world. Drawing on their shared experience as facilitator and client, they detailed the journey of foresight and futures across the past 50…
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