Your Blood is Not Enough
You try to be a good citizen and what do you get? Yesterday my wife and I both got a letter from Lifeblood indicating that our (along with thousands of others) personal information was stolen. The letter states that the personal information included "your name, last address known to us, date of birth, gender..." Okay, that's not too bad. That seems like publicly known information. Unfortunately it also states, "if you provided the following information, it may also be included: social security number, driver's license information, marital status, ethnic background, email and phone numbers." Now that's not good. It seems that this information was maintained on two laptop computers that "were kept in a locked room when they were not being used by the blood center's staff to facilitate the registration of blood donors." Storing that type of information on a laptop is improper and irresponsible. Laptops are too easy to lose, break or steal. To top it off, they eluded to the fact that these records go back as far as 1990!
But here's the biggie! "If you actually made a blood donation in the past, your blood type and cholesterol result may be included in the information." OH MY GOD! So now I guess I have to worry (or not) about a discriminating vampire. Somebody gets your social security number and personal information, then wipes you out financially, that's one thing, but if someone goes around claiming your blood type and cholesterol level, well that just raises it to a whole new level. I'm not exactly sure what they would do with it. Get a prescription for Lipitor? ...bunch of conniving snakes.
Actually I don't recall giving my social security number to the blood bank. I'm pretty sure I would have asked them what they wanted it for if they had asked. Seems to me that my name, address, phone number, illnesses and medications would be all they needed. Everything else would simply be government regulation overstepping its bounds. I understand the need for a clean blood supply, but after it's drawn, tested, seperated into it's components and distributed, why do they need my social security number EIGHTEEN YEARS after the fact?
From now on I suggest we question why we need to give our personal information to those that ask for it. We tell kids not to talk to strangers but we give our social security number to the damn blood bank. We're fools. FOOLS I TELL YOU!
But here's the biggie! "If you actually made a blood donation in the past, your blood type and cholesterol result may be included in the information." OH MY GOD! So now I guess I have to worry (or not) about a discriminating vampire. Somebody gets your social security number and personal information, then wipes you out financially, that's one thing, but if someone goes around claiming your blood type and cholesterol level, well that just raises it to a whole new level. I'm not exactly sure what they would do with it. Get a prescription for Lipitor? ...bunch of conniving snakes.
Actually I don't recall giving my social security number to the blood bank. I'm pretty sure I would have asked them what they wanted it for if they had asked. Seems to me that my name, address, phone number, illnesses and medications would be all they needed. Everything else would simply be government regulation overstepping its bounds. I understand the need for a clean blood supply, but after it's drawn, tested, seperated into it's components and distributed, why do they need my social security number EIGHTEEN YEARS after the fact?
From now on I suggest we question why we need to give our personal information to those that ask for it. We tell kids not to talk to strangers but we give our social security number to the damn blood bank. We're fools. FOOLS I TELL YOU!
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