Tony has made an interesting point. When my overhead line in my remote area went down I spent a week trying to convince a BT call centre in India that I was using a public telephone box some distance from my village to speak to them. They found it difficult to appreciate that waiting hours at a time in a phone box just to be connected to a live person was unhelpful, and yes, even in England there are places where the mobile telephone does not work so they couldn't ring me back when I returned home. I just had to get this off my chest, but a full week trying to get my line repaired, spending what felt like a lifetime in a smelly phone box, not being able to use my telephone or computer at home was bad enough without now realising that BT was spending all this time and energy in providing a service which clearly is a DP nightmare.
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Tim Trent
Sent: 02 February 2006 17:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: BT SMS service
How on earth did you find a number to call?
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tony Bowden
Sent: 02 February 2006 16:53
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] BT SMS service
This afternoon, I, along with presumably many millions of other BT
customers, received an email announcing their wonderful new SMS Self Service
system. (http://www.bt.com/sms/)
The basic gist is, send an SMS to 64364 asking "Paid <phone number>", and
they'll reply telling you when the bill for that line was last paid.
There is nothing whatsoever to restrict this to the owner of the phone line.
You can use this to find out when anyone with a BT line last paid.
I phoned BT to complain, but neither of the two people I talked to seemed to
even be aware of the service, and certainly didn't know how to handle
enquiries about the privacy implications of it. I'm currently waiting for
someone more senior to call me back.
Surely this is a massive breach of Data Protection? I'm considering a
complaint to OFTEL, but perhaps this is one for the OIC as well?
Tony
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