Ryan Bridge: There should be instant fines for loss of data

Yesterday was a bad day for some of my pet peeves. 

I couldn't find a carpark in town, I had to visit a supermarket, and Qantas suffered a data hack. 

Nothing drives me more crazy than a business —big or small, although in this case very big— asking too many personal questions and getting too many personal details about their customers. 

Unnecessarily so. 

Now. There's a good argument for why Qantas needs your details - if you're flying then they require your passport number, your date of birth, your addresses in case things go wrong, etc. 

I get that. But if they are collecting such sensitive information —our secrets and the secret to our identity— then can they not keep it safe? 

No, they can't. 

Yesterday, 6 million Qantas customers had names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, and frequent flyer numbers stolen.

They reckon no credit card data was taken. 

But honestly, who cares? The information that was taken is bad enough. 

And what will they do? Apologise, send a letter, and then move on till it happens again. 

We should have instant and aggressive fines. Once your private data is hacked from your third-party customer service centre, there's no getting it back.  

It can and will be used, sold on the black-market to gangs of losers wanting to rip you off. 

They've opened a can of worms. 

The sooner these guys get properly punished for being so cavalier with our information, the sooner it stop it getting stolen. 

And then they might also start asking themselves whether they really need our data in the first place. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday was a bad day for me for some of
my pet peeves. I had trouble getting a car park,
probably half an hour wasted there, I had to go
to the supermarket, which you know that I hate doing,
and Quantus had a data hack. Nothing drives me more
crazy than a business, big or small, although in this
case very big, asking too many personal questions of us

(00:23):
and getting too many personal details about their customers unnecessarily.
So now there is a good argument for why Quantas
of all companies, would need your details. You know, if
you're flying, you need a passport number, you need your
date of birth, your address in case things go wrong,
et cetera, et cetera. I get that, But if they
are collecting such sensitive information, our secrets and essentially the

(00:46):
secret to our identity, then can they not keep that safe? Please? No,
they can't, No, they can't. Yesterday, six million Quantus customers names,
email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, frequent flyer numbers, you
name it. Apparently everything but the credit card data. Thank god. Now,
if you can keep your credit card data safe but

(01:08):
not the rest of it, then why not the added
layers of protection for everything else? The date of birth?
Please Honestly, at this point, who cares the information that
was taken is bad enough? And what will they do? Apologize,
send a letter, and then move on until it all
happens again, which it will. We should have instant and

(01:29):
highly aggressive fines for this type of thing happening. Once
your private data is hacked from your third party customer
service center, there is no getting it back. It can
and will be used sold on the black market to
gangs of losers wanting to rip us off. They've opened
a can of worms for us. The sooner these guys

(01:50):
get properly punished, and I'm not talking just about Quantus,
but multinationals and big companies in particular, for being so
cavalier with our information. This sooner it might stop getting stolen,
and then they might also start asking themselves whether they
really need our personal details and so many of them
in the first place. For more from Early Edition with

(02:13):
Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it Be from
five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.