[http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/305928,telstra-says-its-not-spying-on-users.aspx]……
Days after suspicions of Telstra's networking monitoring activity was first aroused, the telco has revealed it captures web addresses visited by millions of subscribers on its Next G network.
The addresses are compared to a blacklist of criminal sites curated by web filtering company Netsweeper, and held both in Australia and the US.
[http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/306441,telstra-tracks-users-to-build-web-filter.aspx]
I want to talk to you about why customer privacy is not negotiable.
Last week, the media ran with a story that Telstra was sending information about the web browsing activity of Next G customers to a third party company in North America. We were collecting this information to classify Internet sites for a new cyber-safety tool called Smart Controls.
We stopped the program immediately, as this was the right thing to do. We informed the media and briefed the Privacy Commission and other regulatory bodies. But by then, the damage to our reputation was already done.
Some of our customers may feel we have broken their trust, and, frankly, they are entitled to feel that way.
The hard reality is it will take months of hard work to win back that trust.
I am also concerned that this incident occurred in the same week that the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Privacy Commissioner handed down their findings on a privacy breach last December, when customer records were exposed on the Internet.
Judging by media reports, the Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, is also concerned. He told The Australian last Friday that he was now on the lookout for systematic privacy weaknesses in our operational culture.
It’s not hard to see why. These incidents and investigations create an impression that Telstra does not care enough about the privacy of our customers. Not only that, they undermine the great work we have done to improve customer satisfaction and change the way our customers talk about us.
Of course, the truth is we care deeply about customer privacy.
That’s why I want to remind everyone that privacy is not an aspiration at Telstra – it is an essential requirement and our license to operate.
Privacy at Telstra is everyone’s responsibility. We have to do better.
If you have concerns with anything that threatens the privacy of our customers, then raise the issue with your manager as a matter of urgency.
Our customers’ trust is a commodity that’s both precious and fragile. It takes months and years to build, but can be broken in one day.
That’s what happened last week. It must not happen again.
David
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