By Derek Green
I’ve spiralled again. This is how it started – a seemingly harmless chat with an unwitting accomplice in a call centre.
Call Centre Operator (CCO): “Hi Derek, can I just get your email address, home address and date of birth please.”
Me: “Oh right. Sorry but why do you need all that information?”
CCO: “Well, we just need to identify you.”
Me: “But why?
CCO: “So we know that it’s you.”
Me: “But I’m telling you it’s me.”
CCO: “We need to be able to match your personal information against what we have in the system.”
Me: “But I’m not in your system.”
CCO: “Ah, I see, OK set let’s set you up then. I’ll need your full name, email add…”
Me: (cutting him off) “But I’m just trying to redeem a $20 digital gift card that work sent me.”
CCO: “Ah, right. Well setting up an account only takes a few m…:
Me: (cutting him off again) “That’s ridiculous, I don’t want an account, I just want to use my $20 gift card!”
CCO: “Sorry I can’t help you without setting up an account.”
Me: (long pause, followed by an irritated sigh) “Fine. Derek Smith, 1 Smith Street, Smithtown, 3000.”
CCO: “Right. And your date of birth?”
Me: “The first of the first of the first.”
CCO: “Umm, so are you saying you’re 25?”
Me: “No, it’s 01 01 1901.”
CCO: “So you’re 125 then?
Me: “Well no, technically that would make me 124.”
CCO: “Huh. Wow.”
Me: “Look, can I just have my friggin’ $20 gift card now please?”
Let me just state, I am not a conspiracy theorist, I’m most certainly a ‘round earther’ and do not believe that Dan Andrews should be brought before The Hague and sentenced to life in prison for crimes against the people. I love ‘tech’, I just don’t love BIG tech, tech-for-tech-sake, or tech-replacing-people. These forms of tech are gradually eroding our humanity while exposing us in new and frightening ways. Between the cloud, digital data centres, and AI, we’ve become more susceptible to financial fraud, hacking and identity theft than at any time in history – and the defenders of our personal information are losing the battle.
Yes, this all started over a digital ‘virtual’ gift voucher I received as a link, but it quickly became clear that this was just the tip of the digital information iceberg. Under the surface lurks a vast, wild-west mother-lode of accounts, apps, birth dates, and mother’s maiden names, and everyone wants a piece of us. You can’t even buy a sandwich without setting up an account and entering your details. Why do they want it all, especially when they cannot protect it, and will sell it to their ‘trusted partners’ at the first opportunity? Meanwhile, the conversation continued…
CCO: “Derek, my system seems to have a problem. I’m not sure any of that information you gave me is accurate.”
Me: “But why does that matter as long as you can enter it into your system?”
CCO: “Because it’s all false.”
Me: “Why would I want my real information in your system? You might leak it or sell it?”
CCO: “Oh I can assure you your information will all be safe with us.”
Me: “How can you guarantee that? You’re just some crappy gift voucher management company with offshore call centres. I mean, think mate, the CIA was hacked. NASA was hacked. How is it you, holding all this information about thousands of customers, think you cannot be hacked?
CCO: “Hmm, good point. Are you able to just download our app?”
This seemingly trivial exchange is part of a broadening data harvest by stealth – our information taken, traded, and stored by unknown actors in unseen places. Sure, a gift card account might seem innocuous, but consider the Uber driver delivering Woolies alcohol who couldn’t complete my order because I refused to let him scan my driver’s licence into their system. Why would I hand a multinational – with opaque systems and a bullseye for hackers – my name, address, date of birth, photo AND signature, all in one hit, just for the sake of a couple of bottles of plonk? Or the health insurance provider who cheerfully advised that my call would be recorded ‘for training purposes,’ yet was shocked when I refused this, citing the ease with which AI voice clones can be created with even a short audio sample. “But we can’t continue the call if it’s not recorded,” she informed me. “I thought it was just for training purposes?”, I countered.
From my balcony, it leaves me wondering: in the digital age, is it even possible to leave no trace? The answer is no — but you can reduce your footprint and stay safer.
Why it matters: most of us have dozens, if not hundreds of online accounts. Don’t believe me? Check your browser’s password manager – you’ll find accounts from 15–20 years ago, some with organisations long dead. Over time, many of these will be breached. It’s inevitable. One breach is bad enough – multiple breaches allow hackers and other unsavoury types to connect the dots, using a single identifier, like your email or mobile number, to build a detailed story of you – an instruction manual to your life.
What to do: reset your passwords, unique and complex. It might take a day, but it’s worth it: log into every account, delete the ones you really do not need, and reset the rest with the strong password suggested. Store them locally or use a reputable password manager such as LastPass (although I keep my banking passwords in my brain only). Do it for everything – insurance, medical, streaming services – all the way down to the corner cafe that sends you a weekly newsletter. Set up 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) via mobile or authenticator apps wherever possible. Remove any apps you don’t need from your phone. Resist signing up for new accounts and apps; where possible, use a fake, plausible date of birth and address. Always ask yourself: do they really need this information? If not, just make it up.
Never enter personal information into AI models such as ChatGPT or Copilot. Sure, they sound friendly now, but give them your details and next thing you know they’ll be at your doorstep – more efficient and less grumpy than you, and ready to run your calendar, send birthday cards to your family and friends, and ask if you’d like fries with your redundancy.
In a world that knows too much, taking back control starts small – a fake birthday here, a deleted app there, a password even Deep Thought would struggle to remember, and maybe, just maybe, we can stop being the all-you-can-eat buffet the digital world can’t stop snacking on.
