Rogue Employees Sell World Cup Fans' Passport Data 128
An anonymous reader writes "Reports are coming in that the Information Commissioner's Office has started investigating FIFA, the world football governing body, over allegations that details of thousands of World Cup fans' — including their passport data — were accessed by one or more members of staff and then sold on the black market. It is alleged that the details of more than 35,000 English fans — who visited Germany for the 2006 World Cup — had their passport and allied data sold to ticket touts for marketing purposes."
Re:Make the punishment fit the crime (Score:5, Insightful)
On a serious note, if it's the second scenario supposed in TFA.... Keeping that sort of personal data for that long without any proper use for it shows either a heavy degree of incompetence or a desire to use it for their own promotions and that they are sour that "rogue" employees beat them to selling the information.
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm curious if scalpers sell more or less tickets than the original vendors would have sold had they used the scalper's prices to begin with.
The question is, do the scalpers inflate the prices artificially by monopolizing the supply?
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:2, Insightful)
What you're suggesting is a little bit like buying up all the oil quickly, then gouging the hell out of it when the people without the means to get in early need it.
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's because nobody likes leaches that jump in the middle of a transaction and grab money from both sides. Such people contribute nothing and so should gain nothing.
If the tickets were an unlimited resource, few would care, but more typically the scalpers descent and snap up all of the tickets leaving people no choice if they want to see the event.
The original seller may well have an interest in the affordability of the event. For example, it's strongly in their best interest to not have fans give up on getting tickets ever again and lose interest.
Re:Why would FIFA have this data? (Score:2, Insightful)
According to the article they have a lot more than just passport data on fans, and it isn't just hooligans, its EVERYBODY!
Too bad this seems to be so normal that the article and most people on Slashdot seem to be taking this collection of data as NORMAL!
It's bizarre. If I ever go to a sports game and somebody asks me for my passport, date of birth, driving record or any other personal peace of information I'm going to tell that person to "fuck off" and save my time and money on something useful (like beer or prostitutes).
If somebody is a criminal, or a "football hooligan" then they should just be placed on the "no fly list" or no-enter-country list. None of this guilty-before-proven-innocent bullshit, like with the trend of suspects of minor crimes being put into permanent fingerprint and DNA databases, things just go too far.
It's funny too because with these kind of rules, you'll notice that politicians, the rich, and celebrities are generally excluded, like with the U.S. watch lists (the un-redacted TSA manual can be found on Wikileaks), and the (former) law in Britain that required anybody who had contact with children be put on a database of potential child abusers (the law was worded more tactfully than I put it). Look up the references yourself here. These things were pointed out in other Slashdot stories.
Regards, Anonymous and Cowardly;
the AC
Re:Why would FIFA have this data? (Score:3, Insightful)
The data of those who are not banned need not be collected. But alas, it was.
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument is that scalpers monopolize the ticket supply, which is like oil sheiks selling the oil at inflated prices. Your response is that because one product is necessary and the other isn't the entire comparison is absolutely insane.
So, I'll start the argument again. I assert that ticket scalpers monopolize (a significant portion of) the ticket supply. This is unfair to consumers who are now forced to pay inflated prices for tickets that the manufacturer (performer, artist, musician, whatever) originally sold. Now, because musicians/artists/etc. provide services that are largely advertised through word of mouth (i.e. your friend tells you about this great new album) I also assert that keeping ticket prices at the original level determined by the artist is vital for the success of the artist. Selling out a concert generates revenue from ticket sales and through future word of mouth advertising. Scalpers raise the price of the tickets and thus reduce the number of people willing to buy the tickets. This harms the future revenue potential of the artist. Thus, scalpers are unfair to consumers and harmful to content producers.
Please, when responding to my argument don't go off on some stupid ass tangent about necessary products.
Re:Why would FIFA have this data? (Score:3, Insightful)
The data was collected because there was no other way to identify the hooligans.
No, the GP's right. You could enforce it just as easily by keeping a blacklist of names and passport numbers and simply use it as a comparison - without actually storing the number you're checking.
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:1, Insightful)
Scalpers will hawk events and pounce when tickets go on sale and buy MANY tickets. If you want to see the event and are at work, you won't have time to sit and refresh the screen over and over just to get two tickets. Scalpers have automated the buying and can pretty much buy the entire arena if they want. The "buy low and sell high" isn't all that is happening. It should be "buy fast and sell high". I've heard of a couple of events where scalpers bought more tickets than people who want to go see the event. This is more akin to drying up the supply to inflate the price to make a buck. And that has always been frowned upon.
Re:One more reason just to kill scalpers. (Score:3, Insightful)
You haven't been paying attention. PLENTY of people object to one or more aspects of the stock market. Some object to the entire class of people who inhabit it.