Experts: Employees' snoop on customer data (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) -- A landlord snooped on tenants to find out information about their finances. A woman repeatedly accessed her ex-boyfriend's account after a difficult breakup. Another obtained her child's father's address so she could serve him court papers.

All worked for Wisconsin's largest utility, where employees routinely accessed confidential information about acquaintances, local celebrities and others from its massive customer database.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press in an employment case involving Milwaukee-based WE Energies shine a light on a common practice in the utilities, telecommunications and accounting industries, privacy experts say.

Vast computer databases give curious employees the ability to look up sensitive information on people with the click of a mouse. The WE Energies database includes credit and banking information, payment histories, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and energy usage. In some cases, it even includes income and medical information.

Experts say some companies do little to stop such abuses even though they could lead to identity theft, stalking and other privacy invasions. And companies that uncover violations can keep them quiet because in many cases it is not illegal to snoop, only to use the data for crimes.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/02/28/snooping.workers.ap/index.html

[Loge23]

1. One of the consequences of a corrupt regime in the U.S....

...is that the general population will adopt the same behaviors of their leaders.
Witness torture mirrored by increasing incidents of police brutality.
Witness a all-time high in the prison population with an astonishing 1/100 U.S. adults in jail! (www.nytimes.com)
Witness lying under oath! (See Roger Clemons)

Fascism is in!

[Gormy Cuss]

2. There is no reason for a utility company to have access to customer SSNs except to snoop.

Back in the Dark Ages utilities didn't use credit reports. If you had no history with the utility they may have asked for a deposit or they may have relied on a check with your previous utility companies to
check your payment history. Neither required divulging your SSN. The solution to nonpayment of bills was simple: shut off the account.

The employees would still be able to snoop for customer addresses and payment history within the utility company data but without access to credit reports that would be the end of it.

Too bad we don't have real privacy laws in this country.