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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."
When they catch the people who did this, they should be forced to listen to those vuvuzelas at high volume until their ears bleed. That'll teach 'em.
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www.moneybythenumbers.com
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?
Um, I really don't see whats so bad about "scalping" tickets. If people are willing to pay more than the listed price, let them. Now, granted, selling personal data is bad, but scalping isn't. Its simply the free market at work, if I've got something I bought at $5, why should I -have- to sell them at that price? If someone wants to spend $10, $20, $50 on them, let them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Hippocrates much
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/sep/05/fifa-passports-claims The most interesting bit is that Sepp Blatter's nephew is involved with the company at fault.
...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.
What exactly does my passport data reveal about me? Here's what (with US passports anyway):
- My name (for common names, no big deal)
- My birthday (kinda private, but I give i
- My gender
- My birthplace
- Where I got my passport (issuing authority)
- Date validity (when I got it and when it expires)
That's it.
My name is not exactly a secret (I give it to total strangers all the time). Plus, it's a common one in the US, so (obviously) a lot of people have it.
My birthday is kind of personal, but there very little someone could do with it without having more data.
My gender is easily guessable once you know my first name.
My birthplace lists only the country, and not the city. Useless.
My issuing authority is even less specific: 'US Department of State'.
Date validity is also useless.
It's not as if my passport lists my SSN, home address, credit history, or anything else that can be used to steal my money or identity. Perhaps they have a lot more personal info in other countries' passports, but not in mine.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I'm curious if scalpers sell more or less tickets than the original vendors would have sold had they used the scalper's prices to begin with.
The question is, do the scalpers inflate the prices artificially by monopolizing the supply?
Just because you can be a cunt, doesn't meant you have to be.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
It's because nobody likes leaches that jump in the middle of a transaction and grab money from both sides. Such people contribute nothing and so should gain nothing.
If the tickets were an unlimited resource, few would care, but more typically the scalpers descent and snap up all of the tickets leaving people no choice if they want to see the event.
The original seller may well have an interest in the affordability of the event. For example, it's strongly in their best interest to not have fans give up on getting tickets ever again and lose interest.
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.
I believe FIFA uses this to enforce international bans on some of the "special" fans. Think the English team in Euro Trip.
Yes, one of these products is necessary and the other is not. However, you haven't demonstrated how the ECONOMICS of the situation are different in any way whatsoever. Your argument is a red herring.
The argument is that scalpers monopolize the ticket supply, which is like oil sheiks selling the oil at inflated prices. Your response is that because one product is necessary and the other isn't the entire comparison is absolutely insane.
So, I'll start the argument again. I assert that ticket scalpers monopolize (a significant portion of) the ticket supply. This is unfair to consumers who are now forced to pay inflated prices for tickets that the manufacturer (performer, artist, musician, whatever) originally sold. Now, because musicians/artists/etc. provide services that are largely advertised through word of mouth (i.e. your friend tells you about this great new album) I also assert that keeping ticket prices at the original level determined by the artist is vital for the success of the artist. Selling out a concert generates revenue from ticket sales and through future word of mouth advertising. Scalpers raise the price of the tickets and thus reduce the number of people willing to buy the tickets. This harms the future revenue potential of the artist. Thus, scalpers are unfair to consumers and harmful to content producers.
Please, when responding to my argument don't go off on some stupid ass tangent about necessary products.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
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.
You haven't been paying attention. PLENTY of people object to one or more aspects of the stock market. Some object to the entire class of people who inhabit it.