This amusing and informative video was made by Cifas, the UK anti-fraud data exchange. It shows how easy it is to collect lots of information about an individual by enticing them with something as innocuous as a social media promotion for a coffee house. The expression on the faces of the customers makes it obvious how little they had considered the risks of allowing strangers to crawl all over their Facebook profiles.
We routinely tell ourselves that data is valuable. However, there is a disconnect between the relaxed way most people give data away and how they feel about that same data being exploited by others. This inconsistency cannot be easily ignored by telcos. It not only poses a threat, because of the potential for identity fraud, but also begs the question of how customers will respond if we go too far when utilizing the information we already collect.
