The threats to our personal lives from computer databases continue unabated. It's bad enough with data being compromised at Target and Neiman-Marcus, with the NSA sucking up miniscule tidbits about our lives and with the DHHS and IRS gathering and merging all kinds of details about our finances and health. Now, the Veterans Administration has royally screwed up.
FOX NEWS is reporting that, according to multiple complaints, veterans who logged onto the eBenefits site to check personal claims and benefits information were redirected to other veterans' files. One veteran signed in to look at the status of his claim and got someone else's file. Every time he logged off and signed back in, he got a different file. Names, addresses, bank numbers and medical conditions – both current and past -- were among the information made available via the data breach last week. This isn’t the first time the VA has had a problem with privacy – in 2012, thousands of veterans had their personal information compromised when data was released to Ancestry.com, and posted.
With this revelation will undoubtedly come more "poo-pahs" trying to minimize the significance of the breach. The fact is, everybody has their damned databanks these days. Even going back 15 years, if you had an ATM machine in your business you could have the company supply you with the names, addresses, telephone numbers, amounts withdrawn on particular occasions or in total over periods of time... and you could get the same information about credit card users. That was a trove of marketing information for the business, but customers had no idea what was happening.
The more of these data depositories there are around the country which contain private information about us, the more danger we are in. Computer systems these days have so much memory and processing capacity that I can't even begin to describe it. The upshot is that there is no impetus to clean out data records anymore. And with the "marrying" or merging of different data bases from different businesses and government files, mega-data files are being created today that can dial in to you and provide me with the date you last bought condoms, the brand, where purchased, the amount paid, what hotel or motel you stayed in that night, who was in the room with you, what you had for dinner... Scary, isn't it? Just ask the guys at GOOGLE.
Well, the V.A. has apologized for the error, so I guess we can all sleep well tonight, can't we?
Illegitimi non carborundum.
That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.
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