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.