Slashdot Mirror
Rogue Employees Sell World Cup Fans' Passport Data
An anonymous reader writes "Reports are coming in that the Information Commissioner's Office has started investigating FIFA, the world football governing body, over allegations that details of thousands of World Cup fans' — including their passport data — were accessed by one or more members of staff and then sold on the black market. It is alleged that the details of more than 35,000 English fans — who visited Germany for the 2006 World Cup — had their passport and allied data sold to ticket touts for marketing purposes."
Why would FIFA even have passport data at all? At what point to they collect passport data from attendees? What happens if you refuse to show them your passport?
...Then they should be priced double that. The only reason scalpers exist is because there is an imbalance between what people are selling something for and what they are worth. Why should I be outraged that Bob's Arena is selling Justin Bieber tickets for $40 but people are willing to pay $80 for them? And it isn't like these are any sort of vital resources like gas, oil or water. I really see nothing to be outraged about, should I also be outraged that some people go to garage sales and get baseball cards worth $100 for $5?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Another factor is the sold-out cred. The optimum price (defined purely economically) will tend to leave a few unsold seats. There is a lot of cred in the entertainment world to selling out an event. Not selling out is seen as a sign of flagging popularity.
Security in the real world is seldom an absolute.
While you're absolutely correct that there's room for improvement, there will always be fraud. The bad guys aren't going to jack it in and take a respectable job just because you've made their life a little harder. Developing a layer to reduce that fraud costs a lot of money - it's easy to devise a theoretical solution, it's rather harder to ensure it'll work reliably with the millions of card users worldwide without significantly impacting on legitimate transactions. It's not something you can throw together in a week or so.
And when you've finished you'll have reduced one sort of fraud, which may well have an impact on others - the bad guys aren't going to retire simply because you've made their job harder.
So, questions have to be asked. Questions like "How much does this sort of fraud cost?" and "Are there cheaper ways of achieving the same end?". Given that fraud costs a lot of money, I guarantee you these exact questions are being asked.