When was the last time you read or heard a privacy statement?
I’m sure that we’re all happy to know that the organisations with which we interact have privacy statements, and that they hopefully honour them, but are we interested in the fine print? Do we make a point of checking such statements?
I had reason to phone the Australian Tax Office earlier today, and let me say what a fine, upstanding and outstanding bunch of people they are. (I have no desire to annoy anyone at the ATO.)
The thing that made me smile was the fact that after a brief welcome, the very first option the recorded voice gives is to hear the privacy statement. It’s hello, welcome, then straight into, “If you would like to hear our privacy statement, press nine.”
I wonder if anyone has ever pressed nine. Has anyone ever thought, “Before I join the queue to talk to one of the fine, young people at the tax office, I’d like to get their take on privacy.”? I know that you’re expecting me to tell you that just for the sake of the exercise I pressed nine … but I didn’t. I can’t tell you how long or interesting it is. Mind you, if you’ve ever pressed nine to hear the privacy statement, I’d love to hear from you.
How much fine print do we ever read? When was the last time you read all the conditions of joining an online service or installing some software? Does anyone go to that much trouble? (I must admit that I ‘skim’ through those things quite a bit to check the relevant bits, but I reckon I’m in the minority.)
By the way, as a point of interest, if you search Google Images with the terms “Australian Tax Office”, you’ll see a remarkable number of photos of Paul Hogan.
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