One is bombarded with a gazillion ultra personal and highly confidential questions when obtaining bank a account, phone connection, insurance, lease etc., but what assurance do we have that all the information we provide are confidential as they say it is?
I had lost faith in the biggest GSM provider in Sri Lanka to keep my information confidential long ago. Some one who had my mobile number indirectly or directly had access to my full name, age, the company I worked for, address and my home phone number. This wasn’t the only instance, there was a twice, thrice and plenty more times, that I have given up keeping count of them.
The latest is to do with the biggest (me thinks) vehicle insurance provider. A bloke sees me a couple of times in a parking lot, he notes down my vehicle number, gives it off to the big shot uncle who happens to work in the above mentioned insurance company (obviously since most vehicles are insured with them, he decides to try his luck…hmmmphh) and tells him that it’s a long lost friend’s vehicle, and he needs the number to get in touch. The big shot uncle happily divulges the mobile number (which is a connection from the biggest GSM provider, which indirectly means that I have no assurance about the rest of my information being handed out on a platter to the goggle eyed boy). The boy calls, I play harsh, (he sure had me making sour faces at hello), and explains about how he got about obtaining my phone number, I am amused, very amused, almost hysterical, but at the same time very angry and jittery for the reason that I had plenty regards towards the insurance company involved.
What if the niece of the big shot was a gone wrong thug with a serious case of OCD? The ‘he wants it and he gets it type’, who’d go the distance and make plenty trouble to get what he wants. I could jolly well sue the insurance company, but it just ain’t of any use. I can only express my utter disgust at how well managed the so-called big shot companies are. This sort of action coming from the lower end of the company can be blamed upon the newcomers who have no idea (or rather are not bothered) bout the company / service ethics and policies, but this sort of action coming from the top management is absolutely shocking.
So much for confidentiality in Sri Lanka !
I had lost faith in the biggest GSM provider in Sri Lanka to keep my information confidential long ago. Some one who had my mobile number indirectly or directly had access to my full name, age, the company I worked for, address and my home phone number. This wasn’t the only instance, there was a twice, thrice and plenty more times, that I have given up keeping count of them.
The latest is to do with the biggest (me thinks) vehicle insurance provider. A bloke sees me a couple of times in a parking lot, he notes down my vehicle number, gives it off to the big shot uncle who happens to work in the above mentioned insurance company (obviously since most vehicles are insured with them, he decides to try his luck…hmmmphh) and tells him that it’s a long lost friend’s vehicle, and he needs the number to get in touch. The big shot uncle happily divulges the mobile number (which is a connection from the biggest GSM provider, which indirectly means that I have no assurance about the rest of my information being handed out on a platter to the goggle eyed boy). The boy calls, I play harsh, (he sure had me making sour faces at hello), and explains about how he got about obtaining my phone number, I am amused, very amused, almost hysterical, but at the same time very angry and jittery for the reason that I had plenty regards towards the insurance company involved.
What if the niece of the big shot was a gone wrong thug with a serious case of OCD? The ‘he wants it and he gets it type’, who’d go the distance and make plenty trouble to get what he wants. I could jolly well sue the insurance company, but it just ain’t of any use. I can only express my utter disgust at how well managed the so-called big shot companies are. This sort of action coming from the lower end of the company can be blamed upon the newcomers who have no idea (or rather are not bothered) bout the company / service ethics and policies, but this sort of action coming from the top management is absolutely shocking.
So much for confidentiality in Sri Lanka !
6 comments:
cannot believe it. Do not want to believe it. Really sucks. We provide far more details to banks btw....
Anyway, it would be difficult to sue... how to prove?
Hi...Just got your prof while surfing. yep, it's disgusting. but, remember, u could never hide your-self today dear. It's very much easier to catch you where ever u stay, still bit difficult in SL, bt nt in anyother developed countries. So, stay cool...:) tc. Even now SL is gonna make a public DB for the population, think, what if someone hacks!!!..u can get u r tele no thru slt site if knw a name...think...there lot of ways...bt neither u nor me can't stop those....keep u r head cool..!
I'm all chilled, really :)I'm just amused at how things and organisations work.
Ouch ! Did you say 'Data Base for the entire population' ?!? Heaven Help! Disaster !
yes, hpe u wuda hrd abt SSN in developed countries, evry individual hs 1. n they got massive dbs where u r all info, past,present are stored.so forget abt hiding swthrt....nway they r highly secured, nt like hr...but no 100% guranteed that they safe frm intruders...btw, at the moment u r not in SL???
Since I ain't playing hide and seek, so no issues..hehe
Yep, am right here :)
Got here via BlogShares and I was a bit baffled as to why a guy would go to all that trouble to find your info ... and then looked at your profile and realized the reason :p Yeah, nothing's really secret here in good ol' SL but then again, given that the neighbourhood gossip knows all about you, your family, relatives, who visited you the last five months of the year (not to mention what you had for dinner), this is just an extension of the same culture. Unfortunate, but not really new. Of course, that doesn't make your experience any less annoying :)
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