anyone seen the new FA app?

Old Aug 20, 2015, 10:39 am
  #31  
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Originally Posted by Silver Fox
No news here. United keeps personal data about you. That's it. Now they have it to hand. Woo-hoo.
Do you know how easy it is to hack handheld devices? And once into the system (and there will be a connection to a mainframe somewhere) do you know how easy it is to get all the data you want?

Originally Posted by aacharya
Pray tell how would FA access to MM/DD birthdays and city/state (as noted on your OP account) lead to identity theft? One needs the year and the actual address to do anything else.

Based on the specifics that the FAs know, this provides no concern for this traveler. Actually, many here would also expect the join date of MP as well as "closeness" to MM be tracked.
See above. All the info will be accessible, as those devices are simplicity itself to hack, and once in, they will have your life.

Originally Posted by PsiFighter37
No, it's not that. I expect the companies that are taking the information to have the appropriate security in place to safeguard from hackers. I get the feeling that any 'outrage' is more about FAs having access to personal information, not out of any security concern. That is why I am indifferent to the outrage...theoretically, any worker at any company you have done business with could find this information (or more).
Right. Target wasn't hacked, Sony wasn't hacked, the IRS wasn't hacked. I'm sure United is on top of things.

The point is this is entirely UNNECESSARY. We have all these cool devices to save 4 seconds of time while surrendering our privacy. United FAs don't NEED this info, and customers are better off if they don't have it. If you want to give up your privacy and information, fine. But I should have the right to say HELL NO.
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 10:49 am
  #32  
 
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Originally Posted by schnitzer
Calm the worries..

Birthdays are only shown If it is on the day of travel, occurred yesterday, or will occur the day after the flight.
It will appear as Bday+1 for birthday tomorrow, Bday for birthday today, and Bday-1 for birthday yesterday .

To see a customers itinerary, you need to have an active live connection. At the moment, they can not rebook IRROPS. Once in the air, it uses cached data, onboard Wi-Fi doesn't work because company-issued devices are currently not able to bypass the customer pay firewall. But that will change in the future.

Originally Posted by NewportGuy
Do you know how easy it is to hack handheld devices? And once into the system (and there will be a connection to a mainframe somewhere) do you know how easy it is to get all the data you want?



*snip*

The point is this is entirely UNNECESSARY. We have all these cool devices to save 4 seconds of time while surrendering our privacy. United FAs don't NEED this info, and customers are better off if they don't have it. If you want to give up your privacy and information, fine. But I should have the right to say HELL NO.
How easy is it to hack something not connected to the network?

Doesn't UA already have this info already on their mainframes?
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 10:52 am
  #33  
 
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Originally Posted by NewportGuy
The point is this is entirely UNNECESSARY. We have all these cool devices to save 4 seconds of time while surrendering our privacy. United FAs don't NEED this info, and customers are better off if they don't have it. If you want to give up your privacy and information, fine. But I should have the right to say HELL NO.
Your sentiment is well taken. But as a practical matter, what you are suggesting is that you should have the ability to determine which employees of a corporation should be able to access the personal information you have already consensually provided to that corporation, and and for which reasonably foreseeable legitimate business purposes they can use it.
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 10:56 am
  #34  
 
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Originally Posted by NewportGuy
But I should have the right to say HELL NO.
As with any other thing you don't like about an airline you have a choice in your carriers. @:-)
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 6:26 pm
  #35  
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Originally Posted by Imstevek
How easy is it to hack something not connected to the network?

Doesn't UA already have this info already on their mainframes?
According to a prior post, they WILL be connected. And there is a big difference in hacking into a WiFi device and a mainframe.

Originally Posted by JVPhoto
As with any other thing you don't like about an airline you have a choice in your carriers. @:-)
Has United announced to their customers that this is now in play? How will people know what info is at risk if United won't tell?

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Aug 20, 2015 at 7:05 pm Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member -- please use multi-quote
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 7:27 pm
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by JBord
I'd be surprised if this is true, I think the article is a little confusing because it focuses on flight attendants. I suspect the same app will be used by some of the roaming CS folks, like the ones you see at ORD sometimes.
Ah, the "line busters" that pmUA used to use.
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 7:34 pm
  #37  
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Originally Posted by NewportGuy
Do you know how easy it is to hack handheld devices? And once into the system (and there will be a connection to a mainframe somewhere) do you know how easy it is to get all the data you want?



See above. All the info will be accessible, as those devices are simplicity itself to hack, and once in, they will have your life.



Right. Target wasn't hacked, Sony wasn't hacked, the IRS wasn't hacked. I'm sure United is on top of things.

The point is this is entirely UNNECESSARY. We have all these cool devices to save 4 seconds of time while surrendering our privacy. United FAs don't NEED this info, and customers are better off if they don't have it. If you want to give up your privacy and information, fine. But I should have the right to say HELL NO.
Yes. Yes. Absolutely couldn't care less. If I did then I wouldn't even be on t'internet, end of.
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 7:50 pm
  #38  
 
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Sorry I did not read thru 3 pages of posts here...

On my flight NRT IAH, the Int'l IFSM came to our seats with her phone, glanced thru that and greeted us by names. So I guess, in the simple procedure, she did not have to read it off from the printed manifest. What else did she see, I forgot to ask the friendly, chatty FA.
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Old Aug 20, 2015, 11:19 pm
  #39  
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I think BA already does this. Not sure if they have been hacked as yet but I guess it is only a matter of time.
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Old Aug 21, 2015, 1:20 am
  #40  
 
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Curious thing I've noticed in my business, re: Customers and sensitivity to giving personal information.

Those paying with cash never seem to have an issue if we ask for their name. It's almost always those paying with credit cards. And when the credit card is run, we have their name.

You might ask why we'd want a customer's name? Not for marketing; that would be an option, for which we'd ask for their email. The advantage having their name in the system is if there's a return (they don't need to keep track of their receipt), and if they want to buy the same thing they bought a year or two ago, but don't have the particulars. For example, a tube for their kid's bike. Whatever they bought before worked.

Not all information gathering is related to nefarious purposes.
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Old Aug 21, 2015, 7:24 am
  #41  
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This is an outrage!
I plan to post my disapproval of this on my Facebook, Linked In, Instagram, Twitter, Foursquare, and Ashley Madison accounts.
How dare my privacy be compromised like this?!?!
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Old Aug 21, 2015, 7:29 am
  #42  
 
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I see no issue with this. As for the "hacking", can't they do it now?
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Old Aug 21, 2015, 7:37 am
  #43  
 
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Lightbulb United Airlines Link app

Originally Posted by riphamilton
the united spokesperson referred to a FT thread to deflect the PII concerns....
They're so bad, they've no clue what kinds of criticism FT has since they likely block FT internally.

Originally Posted by cerealmarketer
Every airline agent you interact with has had access to the same info for years, decades...
We've no clue precisely what info they had before or after so I don't know how we can say they had the what info for what time.

Originally Posted by schnitzer
This app is called Link. Its not fully developed yet ...
Originally Posted by schnitzer
... It will appear as Bday+1 for birthday tomorrow, Bday for birthday today, and Bday-1 for birthday yesterday ...
Thank you for the detail. The level of privacy & access seems fair.

Originally Posted by tuolumne
... With the company's track record of "training", this should be interesting.
A good app requires no training! Just like a good UI requires no manual.

Originally Posted by physioprof
Well, that raises an interesting issue. Will FAs now be tempted to spend even more time playing with their phones in-flight once they have Internet access?
Totally, just imagine the problems, most of which are stated above. The data provided is useful, I have to admit, we do want to be recognized so I suppose this was the lowest cost way to do so. In cybersecurity, most are reactive instead of proactive.

Originally Posted by NewportGuy
Do you know how easy it is to hack handheld devices? ...
Very easy, just a mere matter of time before we see like how China was inside UA's system for years & UA merely doesn't say anything about it to avoid any PR disaster by eliminating press knowledge. Genius. Yet, dumb in the long run.

Originally Posted by JVPhoto
As with any other thing you don't like about an airline you have a choice in your carriers. @:-)
Originally Posted by zebranz
Some of us do not like to be reminded we survived another year on UA.
+1, not giving UA funds is the best signal of all
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Old Aug 21, 2015, 8:14 am
  #44  
 
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Originally Posted by Richard Chen
They're so bad, they've no clue what kinds of criticism FT has since they likely block FT internally.
Nope. For better or worse, FT is widely viewed at Willis. Whether they take a lot of the criticism seriously (insofar as how worked up the forum gets over certain things) is unclear.

We've no clue precisely what info they had before or after so I don't know how we can say they had the what info for what time.
Pax name, status, SSR, 'star', special meal, etc. Elite pax in Y cabin are separated on "noteworthy passenger" list. No birthdays. This information is being given to flight attendants in an effort to provide additional recognition to passengers, with more to come, such as particular preferences, drinks, requests, etc. I believe the app only displays a birthday icon if a customer has a birthday on the same day.

The itinerary information is valuable though. I can't tell you how many times I've been seated near a frantic passenger inquiring to a flight attendant about their connection, and the F/A simply can't offer any actionable assistance. OTOH, on many of those occasions, I've been able to pull out the app and offer directions to a gate, reassure them about making the flight or even assist with rebooking, if necessary... and I'm just a random guy. If a flight attendant is able to discreetly help a customer in the same manner, then that's a great opportunity for the company to build some brand loyalty.

Totally, just imagine the problems, most of which are stated above. The data provided is useful, I have to admit, we do want to be recognized so I suppose this was the lowest cost way to do so. In cybersecurity, most are reactive instead of proactive.
(emphasis added) Not even close. Nothing about this rollout is low-cost, but it is an opportunity to increase revenue with ancillary sales, provide flight attendants with more customer service tools and opportunities to interact with passengers, allow for more rapid reporting of maintenance issues and save (on the long run) in printing/weight from converting to electronic FAOMs.

Last edited by EWR764; Aug 21, 2015 at 8:33 am
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Old Aug 21, 2015, 8:20 am
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by HelloItsMe
This is an outrage!
I plan to post my disapproval of this on my Facebook, Linked In, Instagram, Twitter, Foursquare, and Ashley Madison accounts.
How dare my privacy be compromised like this?!?!
Good one!
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