Today I had the pleasure of receiving an interesting piece of mail from what I thought was the Williamsport Municipal Water Authority. There was no return address, just the logo, (which I assume is trademarked) of the Water Authority. The bulk mail stamp indicated the envelope was mailed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the envelope boldly stated “IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR WATER AND SEWER/SEPTIC LINES ENCLOSED.”

Inside the envelope I was treated to a description of the financial ruin I could face if I did not buy insurance protection for parts of my water delivery system and, of course was offered numerous options to ensure protection against same ruin along with several easy ways to pay for this annually renewable insurance policy.

After getting lost somewhere in the fine print of how I could cancel and what my waiting periods were and all of the other stuff I can’t read at my age because the print is too small, I went back to my Water/Sewer file to see when it was, exactly, that I gave the Water Authority my permission to sell my personal data that I am required to give them for service. I found nothing that gave them permission to do so nor did I find anything from them telling me they were selling my data to people who were going to send me solicitations dressed up in official looking documents, letterheads or envelopes. Nor could I find anything that allowed me to tell the Water Authority that it did not have my permission to sell my personal private data to a third party.

Maybe I am old fashioned, (or maybe it’s the Libertarian in me), but my personal data — my name, my address, my bank card info, my checking account routing numbers and account numbers, etc. — is valuable and, because it has value, then I should be the one who decides whether or not to sell it and if so then I should be compensated when it is sold, not some non-profit authority that I am required to give my data to in exchange for services.

In this current Information Age, people need to recognize that their personal information has value and we ought to not only stop giving it away but we need to see some legalized standards regarding who can collect our data and who can or cannot sell it. And at the very least NO governmental or quasi-governmental agency should have the right to sell our personal information. If the Pennsylvania Legislature is not looking at this issue, (Gene, Joe, Jeff…. are you reading this?), then maybe it’s time to start.

BILL HALL

Williamsport

Submitted via Virtual Newsroom