Out of Business, Clear May Sell Customer Data 77
narramissic writes "Earlier this week, the Clear airport security screening service ceased operations, leaving many to wonder what would become of the personal information, including credit card numbers, fingerprints, and iris scans, of Clear's customers. And now we know. The information could be sold to the provider of a similar service. Until then, Clear has erased PC hard drives at its airport screening kiosks and is wiping employee computers, but the information is retained on its central databases (managed by Lockheed Martin). Clear customer David Maynor, who is CTO with Errata Security in Atlanta, wants Clear to delete his information but that isn't happening, the company said in a note posted to its Web site Thursday. 'They had your social security information, credit information, where you lived, employment history, fingerprint information,' said Maynor. 'They should be the only ones who have access to that information.'"
heh (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who stood in line and watched well off folks who could fork up the cash and fly by - rather than forcing the influential to face the stupidity that is the tsa so that maybe something could happen to change it - I can't say I feel too upset for them. I saw a guy sign up for it when I flew last month- people that just forked over the $200, lost their data and never really didn't get to use the service must really be mad.
Oh the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Clear customer David Maynor, who is CTO with Errata Security in Atlanta, wants Clear to delete his information but that isn't happening
Shouldn't the CTO of what I assume is a company involved in security know better? Should he have read the fine print before signing up?
Big Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Suckers! (Score:3, Insightful)
Switch (Score:3, Insightful)
"They should be the only ones who have access to that information"
Only if they're going to do what they said with that information - make it faster to clear airport security. If they don't, I want my identity back.
Cooperate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do extra, voluntary action to cooperate with the police state in legitimizing the "papers please" nonsense, and get exactly what you deserve.
It started as a simple excuse to lock you into your ticket purchases. It still has that negative effect, and not a single positive. After all, matching ID to ticket had been done for decades leading to, and of course on, 9/11.
CTO? I don't think so (Score:3, Insightful)
If the CTO of a corporation didn't realize a private company, contracted by the government, would not delete his personal information at his request, he shouldn't be a CTO.
ALL data, in whatever form, once in the hands of the government, its entities, subsidiaries and contractors, will exist essentially forever.
Let the age of Total Information Awareness rock on!
Re:Switch (Score:2, Insightful)
"They should be the only ones who have access to that information"
Only if they're going to do what they said with that information - make it faster to clear airport security. If they don't, I want my identity back.
Maybe you've voluntarily limited your right to dictate what is done with that information. What are the terms of the contracts that the customers signed? Are they being honored by the company's actions? If not, I'd say it's class action time. Personally, I think this program was an experiment by the Government to see what kind of carrot they would need to provide in order to get people to voluntarily give up any sort of privacy. No tin foil hat necessary for this one.
Always judge by capability, not intention (Score:3, Insightful)
When handing someone (or some company) your information, always keep in mind a shift in "company strategy" or PHB change can hurt you. Always judge by capability (what could happen if your information is sold,) and not intention, for intention can change quickly and without warning.
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea in a perfect world he would've. The reality is that people don't have enough time to read all the fine print for everything ever. As long as there's a reasonable expectation of a decent privacy policy, most of us just go with it because the time and effort spent looking for a possible alternative is not worth it. Who's to say that he was even provided with a fine print? The article is not very clear that Clear is in the legal "right" here.
This is also why it's so important to raise alarm at these issues, because short of forcing privacy standards or laws, that's all the majority of us can reasonably be expected to do.
Re:Suckers! (Score:2, Insightful)
Privacy legislation needed (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely the US can enforce similar legislation, what is so private as fingerprints should have the strongest possible protection, regardless whether it's kept by government or private institutions.
Re:They can't sell the info to just anybody (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also, no implicit promise that the company that purchases the information will NOT sell it to others. Just that they are in the same business.
Re:Oh the irony (Score:1, Insightful)
"Too busy"?! I think not. These huge documents are written be legal experts hell bent on making it incomprehensible to all but their own. This is the reason why people don't bother, it's not written in plain language. Not only do you pretend to be a legal expert, I supposed you're an expert in all things atomically based, plus a god in chemical engineering and pharmaceutical processing? The law is an ass, private data should remain so. It's only the US that thinks companies can do what they fsck they like, probably because people like you don't care about anything other than free downloads and celeb of the day.
See thats the same BS Steam is pulling (Score:3, Insightful)
They claim they will do X f they fail. Fact of the matter, of they are in Bankruptsiy, they do what the judge allows and turinf of od deleting anything seen as an asset will never be allowed.
Steam Claims they will open up the games if the go out of business, but in reality they won't be allowed to by the courts.
This is true of any company claiming they will do something if they start to fail.
In the real world, it's complete nonsense.
Re:Suckers! (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, don't trust anyone - private or public sector - with data that you really care about. The private sector will mine the data and sell it to the top bidder. The public sector will make a push to permanently store that data for future use. In both cases, the data will sometimes mysteriously disappear and reappear on eBay or some black market in a 3rd world country.
Neither party, public or private, is on the side of the citizen.
No, it's crap (Score:2, Insightful)
They SHOULD make everyone go through the same BS, even on PRIVATE PLANES, corporate jets, all of them. Let no one be "special". Everyone =politicians, cops, official government bureaucrats, military generals, rich fatcats, all of them, not just the plebes. Get on a plane and fly, you need to go through all the same routine.
Like was said, we won't get rid of the stupid security theater until everyone is inconvenienced enough and complains enough to get changes forced through. That's just nonsense they don't, "everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others" is the height of hypocrisy and just more of them tards trying to bring back an aristocratic class.