Data collection is everywhere; including the pizza store

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In the Washington Post was a nice article explaining how even a normal average citizen can be tracked during her whole day through technology that exists right now. From the article:

Domino's tracks her name, phone number, address, and size and type of pizza ordered. Unless a store decides otherwise, the data are held forever. That way, Domino's can provide more personalized service -- "Hi, Ms. Bernard, would you like your regular -- mushroom and sausage?"

She didn't ask them to store it, and they didn't ask her permission, they just took it. No company should be allowed to do this unchecked.

Bernard's credit card companies know her income and her shopping habits. They can share her information with affiliates without her permission and need not stop even if she asks them to.

Cheery.

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Hackers have gained access to databases at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), making off with the personal information of 800,000 current and former students, employees, and faculty. The data breach is thought to be the largest of its kind at an American college or university.

I've always said it's less about the security of the system than it is the value of the data stolen. If it weren't so easy to use and abuse people's personal data, then ID Theft wouldn't be such a problem.

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There was a recent case in Boston where a man was asked for his driver's license before being seated at IHOP. Apparently some gizmo thought it would be a great idea to prevent "dine and dashing". According to the article, the security person already had about 40 IDs on the desk by the time the subject of this article came in.