Data fascism
Melissa Kite
Security is a scary thing. I sometimes get the impression that my life, in so far as it is still my life, has been sealed in bubble wrap by major corporations and filed in a vault behind ten metres of steel.
It is obvious, for example, that the only people now capable of accessing my bank account details are criminal hacking gangs. No one with any lesser degree of skill could possibly get through the labyrinthine process that my bank has just installed on its internet portal.
I put my most valiant efforts into it just now. I applied every bit of patience and brainpower. I entered my pass code and the last four digits of my debit card. I got the little calculator thingy called PINsentryTM and inserted my debit card into it. I pressed Identify, while balancing the contraption in sunlight. It flashed up a code. I entered it into the box on the computer screen. I waited. Nothing. I did the whole thing again. The solar powering failed. I couldn’t see the code. The computer told me in no uncertain terms that I was not up to the job of looking at my own bank account details.
I would phone my dedicated telephone banking team to ask them to intercede but telephone ‘help’ lines have gone the same way. Only a ruthless criminal intent on stealing someone else’s identity could possibly have the nerve, patience and skill to withstand them.
Press the star key on your keypad twice now. Listen to the following four options, none of which is remotely what you had in mind — no phone, gas or credit card company will ever offer you the option of paying your bill. They will however cheerfully give you the chance to reorganise your ‘friends and family numbers’, whatever that is. I suspect it’s the phonebill equivalent of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Once you’ve made your selection the real horror begins, because now they have to verify that it’s actually you who is calling. You find yourself entering the barcode on your passport, your dry-cleaning priority club membership and the serial number from the bar of chocolate your aunt Doris bought you in 1978 during a trip to Portmeirion Potteries.
‘I’m sorry. The Milky Way wrapper you have entered does not match our records. Please try again.’ Of course, they can’t be too careful. And one appreciates the diligence, one really does. It’s just that it starts to feel as though the amount and sheer intimacy of the information these companies are gathering by demanding such details is, well, a little insecure in itself.
I rang up a credit card company the other day. I only wanted to know my balance. After entering the complete history of the Kite family through a complicated system of tapping, I finally made contact with a man from indeterminatesville with an accent derivative of Mumbai via Lancashire.
‘Hello, Miss Kite. Can you give me the first three letters of your mother’s maiden name, please?’ I pointed out that I had already entered my father’s blood group by Morse code. But it was no use.
I gave him the required letters, and much, much more. By the end of the call he could have put on a wig and turned up at my parents’ house for Sunday dinner without anyone suspecting a thing.
And where are the excruciatingly private details he wrung out of me now, eh? Is there a call centre somewhere in Leeds or New Delhi where the last three digits of every significant number in my life are filed in a computer called Hal?
If information is power, it’s not governments we need to be afraid of. It’s corporations, which have every last bit of ammunition they need to subjugate every single one of us. There are utility companies in France who know enough about me to keep me from making trouble for the rest of my life.
And don’t ever let your guard down with local commerce either. It is at the cutting edge of data fascism. The last time I went into the corner shop and tried to rent a film the man behind the counter informed me that my name wasn’t Kite, after all. It was Wright. This was incontrovertibly so because it said Wright on their system. I asked whether it was possible that they had typed it in wrong and was told this was an outrageous suggestion. It was made clear to me that if I wanted to rent feature films conveniently on a Friday night I must accept that I am Melissa Wright. I stormed out loudly asserting that I would not be annihilated. But if Mr Video ever succeeds in making contact with the master corporations, how long can I hold out?
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