Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark17
And then they get hacked and all that info ends up in the hands of people who use it to exploit.
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I can personally say there was no safeguard to keep me from harvesting already-harvested data given the level of access I had.
Yes, I was a trusted employee, but I had direct access to client database(s) because we made the tools that mined that data. I could do anything and "cover" my tracks if needed. We've downloaded entire databases from clients (with permission) in order to locally sandbox huge rollouts. They trusted us to delete/destroy it afterwards. Though some back-end was universal, a chunk of it was custom to each client.
Anyone's desire to not be tracked, data harvested, etc...that's fine. It's very hard, but it's a very logical thing to want, from personal privacy to the point that your data is actually valuable (to a point) and if you want to monetize it rather than strangers that's legit.
I'm not saying not to worry about it or there's no risk, I'm just saying a lot of it is out there and it's businesses that badly want your data for themselves and to sell to others.
Besides that aspect, so much of this is being pushed by businesses so employees don't have to have cash registers coming up short, keeping cash on hand, having people who need to count/store/transport cash...etc...it's a business decision to streamline. This kind of stuff works hand-in-hand with kiosks replacing humans when ordering stuff at fast food places, etc etc...