ISIS does not concern me. I am more concerned about my privacy being given away from poor security. This security extends from our own government and the Office of Personnel Management to retailers like Target and Home Depot.
Just last week, I had my debit card compromised and used to order a pizza from Dominos in New York. Last year, OPM was hacked. and this leaked not only my personal information. But the personal information of people who I listed as family and friends who could verify the information I listed in my investigation forms.
I was reminded of this when I updated the information when I changed jobs. Everything you’d need to steal my identity or my wife’s identity is out there. Everywhere I’ve lived and worked for the past 7 years is out there.
Names, addresses and phone numbers of my past employers, friends who can verify the information and my family, including step parents is out there. All thanks to poor security practices by our own government.
This doesn’t make me mad so much as it saddens me. We can do better. We should do better. There’s no excuse to not protect a database of every government employee and those listed on their forms.
But it wasn’t. And now it’s out there in the world. For who knows who to have access to.
So excuse me when I don’t get riled up when politicians scream about how we all need our guns because ISIS is coming to get us.
It’s not the terrorists I fear. It’s our own incompetence. It’s our own neglect. That is what scares me more than a small, terrorist group half a world away.