Big Brother? Don't make me laugh...

Here's what I find interesting about what people know about us. Marketing agencies and the private (no pun intended) commercial organizations we do business with know a lot about us. If you knew how much, it might seriously freak you out. Every electronically swipe-able card in your purse / wallet helps them track you. You know that Safeway Club Card? The various frequent flyer / eater / shopper cards? All being used to electronically tag your spending habits. Collectively, the capitalist economy knows what you buy, what you spent, how much you owe, where you live, how many kids, dogs or cats or both, whether the endless targeted advertising they toss at you is working, and so on. They collectively know more about you than you likely know about yourself.

Then there's the government. You would think that they would have their act together about your personal information. But it turns out they don't. When my step-daughter moved from BC to Calgary in January of this year, this simple move set in motion such a shit-storm of forms, paperwork, phone calls and procedure that I'm sure she kept at least a dozen people busy in various government offices around the country for months. They still send her notices and letters indicating that the information they have on file may not be current.

The government could learn a thing or two from the private sector in this regard. Government departments need to learn to start sharing this information. When you move and you fill out a change of address card at Canada Post, you should be able to put a tick in a box that basically says, "Please feel free to distribute this information with every federal and provincial department I've ever done business with." Wouldn't that make life so much easier. Think of how much easier it would be for the government to find dead-beat dads. Or people who have become delinquent on their loans or taxes. Don't even start with me about Big Brother and the dangers of your personal information falling into the wrong hands. It has already fallen into the wrong hands. The private sector is having a field day with your hive of personal information and they know the meaning of the word 'share'. So let's stop kidding ourselves already and let the government do their jobs more efficiently. Or maybe they just don't know how.

Maybe there's a new business niche lurking in this observation. Maybe a private corporation can offer to charge us a small fee every year to keep everyone up to date about our current status. The guarantee is that if we receive even one piece of mail asking us to update our address and stuff - we get our money back. I see this as a potential billion dollar industry. Go ahead, start it up. Just remember to send me the occasional royalty cheque, OK?

You already know where I live.....