While Target takes the recent heat (Herald, March 10) on its data breach, most big-box merchants have been increasing their data collection on your purchases. Try returning a defective item without a receipt or with a receipt that is older than 90 days at your local Home Depot, Walmart or Ace Hardware, and you will discover that they will not take it back without your allowing them to enter your driver’s license number in their computer.
I recently told the Home Depot clerk that I would just throw away the no-stick imported duct tape before submitting my driver’s license number. She told me how secure their computer was and that no one could gain access to their computer data. I told her if the Pentagon and NSA could be hacked, so could Home Depot. Even Target required my driver’s license a couple weeks ago when I returned an item.
“60 Minutes” recently aired a segment describing how data brokers are now selling information on your purchases to advertisers. We really need to let lawmakers know that these practices will eventually come to haunt all of us and that we need to stop merchants from harvesting our private data.
Ron Cornelius
Durango
