CONCERNS have been raised that some agencies entrusted with the personal information of clients are not paying as much attention to security as they ought to be.
This troubling development was highlighted by executive director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB), Reginald Farley as he spoke to THE NATION on the sidelines of the joint ICAB/Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) seminar Thursday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
He acknowledged that banks and other financial institutions have done a good job to keep up-to-date with the trends of deception, but expressed concern that some non-financial institutions have not been doing an equal job.
He said that some of these non-financial systems hold significant and important information, including national identification numbers, credit information and dates of birth, which could be easily breached.
“As businesses and government departments I find that we are sometimes too eager to keep information on persons that is not essential.
“So you would go to get credit from a store, they not only want to see your [identification] card but they want to copy the ID card and add it on their file. Somebody now has my picture, they have my date of birth, NIS number and how I sign. That national ID number is also my tax information number, and we can go on, [but] how do I know your file is secure?” he asked.
“Yes you need to identify me, but do you need to keep it on file?” (SDB Media)
