This is Going on Your Permanent Record!

This is going on your permanent record!

I can’t count the number of times I heard this growing up, both in school and out.  I never questioned what the permanent record contained or looked like but assumed it kept everything from grades, attendance, and of course those trips to the principal’s office.  Did it keep me in line?  Well, I was not a terrible kid to begin with but never gave that permanent record much thought when contemplating a new transgression.  Any fear of how far it would follow me through life hasn’t seemed to have any deleterious effect yet there is a growing risk as it appears we have 100s of permanent records.

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

I was reminded of fact the other day when I was creating a simple legal document from one of the online “legal doc in the box” sites.  They always tease you with “free legal docs” but normally is limited and you still must create an account.  It is these types of accounts that contain their own version of your permanent record.  The first clue was when I was notified that my email address already had an account and did, I want to reactivate it.  I did reactivate it but had to reset my password to do so.  At least I had not used one of my “universal” passwords.  (Yes, I am in security and know the importance of using different passwords, but there was life before where I was ignorant too.)

To my surprise there was an older doc like the one I wanted to create but it was 11 years and 2 houses ago.   What the hell?  I had cancelled my “pro” subscription after that first “free” month was surprised to find that they had kept my account info that was a decade old much less the files contained therein.  I am sure that the data retention policy is outlined in some of the “terms of Service” or other policies on the site, but I have spend more than a month trying to find it.  Granted I can only read about 2 pages before falling asleep for the night so am sure it will take at least 13 years to fully get through the site.  The upside is I am sleeping much better.

This all raises my new concern, like you permanent record from school, all that data is out there to be stolen.  While the keepers of your record are investing more in cyber security, the bad guys are investing more and often have more staff than all the good guys.  The good guys also have other jobs such as usability and developing new features so what is someone concerned about their permanent record to do.

Delete it!  Delete it now! 

Doug

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