Idle Thoughts

In january (another of those new year’s resolutions) I decided it was time to see what the credit companies were saying about me. A little research on the ‘net alerted me to a free offer from Garlik Credit Services who were offering a free credit check using their Data Patrol service.
A lot more checking and I was reasonably sure that after giving these people my personal information, I was not going to end up with an empty bank account and suddenly find someone else claiming my house.

The process was quite drawn out and therefore somewhat lacking in IG1 (my favourite attribute of dealing online). Having told the website a bit about myself, it stated that inorder to proceed to the good stuff, I’d need to come back later and enter some security codes that they would send me in the post.

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1IG: Instant Gratification

A few days later, and still in possession of my house and bank account, the letter from Messr.s Garlik duly arrived. Back I went to the website, signed in again, entered the newly acquired access code and started to read about me. I was pleasantly surprised to see my credit rating and must say that I agreed with the underlying data that seems to contribute to it. The fact that there had been no credit checks on me for more than a year was reassuring, even though it did drag my numbers down a little.

The website did tell me that this was only 75% of what I could expect and if I could be patient enough to check back in a week or two, they’d have the rest of my report ready for my perusal. And so it came, that a couple of days ago I got the promised email from Garlik to say that I could now view my completed credit report.

As it turns out, this hadn’t changed my actual credit rating, but did contain some additional information that may, or may not, be used in assessing whether I’m really a good person to trust with money. The first new information was to assess my income rating, the other was a profile called a lifestage rating which informed me I was an Unattached Traditionalist. While this is not the description I’d use for myself, I can see how people with only a limited number of categories could drop me into this one. Considering the alternatives, it could be worse. The only thing I have to work out now is whether I should aspire to move “up” the scale - maybe to a Contented Grey, or possibly a Contemporary Elder.

The other information that the electronic detectives at Garlik had found was what they called my connections. This was separated into two categories: the relationships I had with other people (apparently 247 other people. Strange, my christmas card list isn’t that long!) and the connections I had with some 41 businesses or organisations. In fact this information is the result of some search-engine bashing: putting in my name and some combination of my (non-confidential) details and seeing what surfaces.

The list of my personal connections seems to be a collection of web reports that contain my name. According to this, I play bowls in Linlithgow and cricket in Beaconsfield. I’m also a volunteer fireman in america. I also run a financial services organisation and have several financial books to my credit. This last alter-ego is one I have come across, as I occasionally get requests from individuals I have never met, asking me for financial advice - or whether they should invest in this ot that stock.
Interestingly, the contacts also list some of the people in my road who are on the electoral register. Quite why it doesn’t list them all, I don’t know but it does give their names and addresses. Presumably if you pay subscriptions to the right databases, you can get this information for anyone you care to choose.

The last set of data in my connections portfolio seems to be a rather motley collection of posts I’ve made to Netnews over the years. Netnews, or Usenet, is one of the internets biggest and oldest secrets. In fact it predates the internet by about a decade: originally running over dedicated connections between academic sites, it was originally a means of notifying interested parties about news in their areas of research. It has since grown into a monster of articles posted by anyone on pretty much any topic under the sun. Being completely unregulated, it does attract more than it’s fair share of kooks and crazies (plus people who seem to make it their life’s ambition to insult as many individuals, races, creeds or political groups as they possibly can).
And so a few of the posts I have made have reappeared in my record. There’s noting there that I wish to conceal, but I have a slight concern that if an undesirable had replied to one of my postings, I may get tarred with the same brush that labels them: internet searches being something of a blunt instrument. It also occurs to me that this must be the same sort of process that is employed by security organisations when profiling individuals as potential threats. Hopefully their methods would be a little more refined, but given the number of misses (which I think on balance do me a favour) that are attributed to me, I can’t help but feeling that if karma is balanced across humanity as a whole, there are people out there who are getting unfairly labelled through no fault of their own.