Let’s Normalize Privacy and Discretion

Posted byVanya Wryter ConsultingPosted inBusiness, LifestyleTags:, , , , ,

You don’t know me. But I know your name and I know where you live.

Scary, right? Recently, I saw a video about protecting your personal details like your birthday, phone number, and address when businesses won’t do that for you. Scams are becoming more common, and businesses don’t need to make a criminal’s job easier for them.

The Potential Harm of Sharing Details

Sharing personal details can be harmful. Here are some examples: a doctor’s office or pharmacy that calls out your full name to everyone in the waiting room. Or the receptionist who asks to confirm your details by getting you to say your birthday and address so the whole room can hear it. 

Another example is the bank teller who confirms the large amount of cash you’re withdrawing by saying it loud enough so the people behind know how much cash you’re about to carry out the door.

A woman commented on the video that a staff member at a medical office said her full name out loud. After the appointment, a man she didn’t know called out her full name. He had been watching her earlier in the waiting room. He started to follow her out of the building. 

Can We Protect Ourselves?

We can be proactive, but the business needs to work with us. People have written their personal information on a piece of paper, only to have the receptionist read out all the details to confirm the details with the patient. 

Another method is to show a driver’s license. Some people have tried this, and said they got unhappy looks from the employee who seemed to think the method was a lazy way to avoid speaking (and for not sharing personal information with everyone in the room).

It’s not very discreet if you write down the amount you want to withdraw and the bank teller shouts out each one hundred dollar bill for everyone around you to hear. By the time you leave the bank, you will feel like a rob-me-I-have-cash target is marked on your back. 

One suggestion is to check in with reception at the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, or whichever office you’re waiting at. They quietly take your name and then give you a number. When they call you, they call your number, not your full name. It’s not as personal or friendly, but it’s definitely more discreet. More offices should try this.

Key Takeaways

Businesses aren’t doing enough to protect our personal information. They like to confirm our identity by asking us to say our full name, address, or phone number in a room full of strangers. Our safety from scammers or creepy people is not safeguarded. We can use some techniques to protect ourselves, but the business needs to cooperate for those techniques to work.

What do you think about how businesses protect your privacy? What methods have you tried?

23 thoughts on “Let’s Normalize Privacy and Discretion”

  6. It’s so incredibly easy for people to get your information online from businesses you have interacted with. I definitely think this is particularly a big issue on social media. Businesses need to do more to protect out privacy and need to take responsibly when information is leaked.

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    2. Yes, I would agree. But I’m often surprised by the naivete of people who frequently post private pictures and information onto “social” media sites. Don’t they realize that they are not the customer in their relationship with the big tech entities that are enticing them to post? The customers are companies who want to buy information about those who use the sites. There is no incentive for the customers to request greater protection of privacy for the people whose spending and traveling and preferences they want to study. I’m also surprised by how safe some people seem to feel, sharing baby pictures and updates as though with their immediate family when in fact mere acquaintances and fake profiles and server maintenance folks and anonymous strangers can also easily see and copy these pictures. Imagine yourself hungry and tired and perhaps having been treated unfairly, passing along a dark street. Suddenly you come upon a brightly lit window of a restaurant where many well dressed people are carousing, laughing, flirting, eating the best food and wearing the best clothes…and wearing nametags…..how would some people react under those circumstances. I think people born after 2000 would do well to revisit the old life skill of looking people in the eye and saying hello, and then once they’ve made a friend, calling them on the phone. It’s a shame to see every human interaction mediated through a device.

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