Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

The Internet and telephone databases are only a few of the many databases created by commercial entities as a consequence of providing services to their customers. Retailers and payment processors create databases of their own. Every time a payment card is used, a record is created of the exact date, time and location of the card use – down to the tenth of a second. This database, and the dicing and slicing of this database, is useful to retailers and card brands themselves to determine patterns of usage and to prevent or detect fraud, and particularly when linked to things like loyalty cards, which allows the retailer to determine the purchasing behavior of specific individuals over time. Databases are a powerful tool for retailers, processors and, of course, governments.Western Australia

It has been reported over many years that the NSA has also infiltrated myriad other databases. This includes the credit card processing and clearing databases, financial systems’ databases, funds transfer network databases, and many more. Although the details remain few, the database access may run from the mundane (the government issues a subpoena to a party for a specific set of records for a specific individual or small number or individuals) to the sublime (the government gets a pipe into the entire database and searches for and retrieves what it wants.)

Here’s where retailers and database managers can get into legal hot water. What do you do when the government requests or demands information in, or access to a database you have or control? Multiple choice…

(A) Turn over the documents without question – hey, they have a warrant or court order, right? (B) Turn over the documents, but tell your customer that you are doing so and let them fight the government. (C) Force the government to get a motion to compel production, and then comply. (D) Fight the demand to the death no matter how much it costs! You are the defender of your customers’ privacy. (E) It depends on who asks for it, what kind of information it is, why the government wants it, how much it will cost to comply, and whether you can practically inform your customer. (F) All of the above.

I have taken enough multiple-choice exams to know that the answer is always all of the above (unless it is none of the above). Deciding whether or how to comply with government demands for information is a complicated issue. Remember though, YOU are the custodian of your customer’s data. They gave it to you for you to fulfill an order or provide goods or services. Not for you to be the agent of some government to use that data to spy on your customers. Your first duty and loyalty is to your customers. No matter how patriotic you are, remember that, but for your express or implied promises of privacy, the data you are being asked to reveal would not exist if the consumer knew that it was invariably going to be shared with the government.

This is where it gets legally dicey.