#flyforpink AWESOME! But a concern...
 

http://flyforpink.com/

Some of you know that breast cancer research is a cause near and dear to my heart, as my ex-wife succumbed to it a year and a half ago.

So I laud Randy and co. for setting aside $10k for a donation this month.

But I find it incredibly unwise for people to be posting boarding passes on social media with full name and ff#. And even if it's not the full info, with a free scanner app I am able to get that data from the bar or box code.

Randy provides these 'tips for posting your boarding pass:'

But clearly no one is following them.

Am I the only one who would never post a boarding pass to social media? Even for a good cause?

20000 boarding passes with full details: ticket number, full legal name etc etc. Even if some of it is about a week old its a treasure trove for data :(

I've expressed my concerns about that as well. It seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Such is life.

Nope. Applaud the cause, but have the same concerns.

I post boarding passes to social media all the time (as a running joke for a couple friends of mine), but I think I take care to ensure that about the only thing anyone could figure out from them is where I'm sitting. Not the flight number, origin or destination, and date.

This is a worthy cause, and I applaud Randy and company for the support. It's up to the rest of us to be mindful of posting PII on social media....or to be aware that we've done it and decide not worry about it.

Be sure to also black out bar codes.

Just for snicks I was pointing my iPhone app at some of the BPs on the flyforpink page to find out folks 411. If a Luddite like me can do that, I'm sure someone who knows what they are doing could really have a field day with that information.

this was possibly the dumbest idea ever in re: to 'raising awareness' perhaps after the ice bucket 'waste water' challenge in recent times.

good intentions aside, now I'm curious as to who was actually behind this campaign. big banks or companies like google who already have all the data they would ever need on us and are still not satisfied. or newer entrants like FB or twitter using this 'social media' push to actually generate some revenues by analyzing a whole treasure trove of data and reselling it to the highest bidder :P

so.. [?]

the vast majority of people on social media are not concerned with privacy
the vast majority of travelers are clueless regarding topics on flyertalk

Is this a haiku!? :confused:

behavior of FTers is totally different from general population.

if they are requiring you to post personal info, then i would agree this is a problem.
are they requiring, or can it be anonymized?

As kokonutz posted in the OP, they don't require personal info, but the site's advice as to what to redact is incomplete as it doesn't advise redacting the bar/box code, for one thing.

Given the site is operated by folks who know that the code can reveal the passenger's information, they ought to be providing better/more explicit advice as to what should be omitted - as most of the public doesn't realize what can be gleaned from the code. It wouldn't be hard to add several words to the pop-up on the site to include that recommendation.