[Dataloss] They Take it Seriously? Oh, Sure

[Richard Forno]

They Take it Seriously? Oh, Sure
January 9th, 2007 by Dan Gillmor

(I originally wrote this for PR Week magazine.)

Several weeks ago, UCLA acknowledged that some of its computers had been
hacked. Obeying a state law, it notified more than 800,000 people that their
personal data, including Social Security numbers, might have ended up in the
wrong hands.

The fact that the data got loose wasn¹t all that striking. Unfortunately,
that¹s all too common. What struck me was this statement from a hapless UCLA
honcho: ³We have a responsibility to safeguard personal information, an
obligation that we take very seriously.²

When and where have I heard that before? All kinds of times and places,
actually. It¹s becoming a mantra that means almost nothing.

Try this: Plug ³we take² and ³very seriously² into a Google News or Yahoo
News search. You¹ll get hundreds of hits, albeit some repeats, where some
big institution - corporate, educational, government, whatever - makes a
giant blunder and then issues a ³we take (insert the violated policy) very
seriously² statement.

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http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/01/09/they-take-it-seriously-oh-sure/