Needless exposures

 It is a matter of grave concern that people are increasingly exposing their personal data , more dangerously the individual photos in public forums. Of late, there are many posts in social networks stating "today is my or my daughter's birthday" and post their latest photos. Just out of curiosity and with academic interest,  I pried further into the profile of the author of the post. Though the person is not in my friend list I was still able to have a good look at important features of their whole profile including their location, their previous photos, siblings, family  and I could say to a fair extent I had enough data to re-build the person's profile to my liking. With some more hunting with the latest sophisticated tools, I am very sure the complete profile of the person who is unknown to the intruder could be built. 

In another post, I saw a senior person posting his photograph at an international airport stating that he will be away from the heat and dust of India for the next six months. I am concerned that how much of efforts will be required to trace the person's house in his native place, which was visible in the social network, and what a field day the miscreants would have should they chose to pay a visit to the locked house !

Recently, I was fortunate to attend a lecture by a leading cyber law advocate who precisely but  elaborately dealt on how photos in unprotected social platforms could be misused and with what  consequences. He detailed that such photos in public forums are picked up methodically every few minutes and then analyzed for their utility (?) values, with the single photo of young women fetching the maximum for obvious reasons and how they could be used to milk further from the hapless victims. 

I sincerely wish such people who keep on sharing their profiles and programmes 'to all' learn more about the 'Dark net' and their activities !! People who frequent social network and boast that they could never live without it should better remember that whatever is posted in such public places are like matters dropped in the ocean and even if it is deleted within minutes, they are already into the hands of those whom you would not like to encounter. Present day technologies offer so much of tools that it is almost possible to recover and bring back anything except lost souls !

Already people in other countries are reported to be avoiding sharing pictures of the children with so many cases of paedophiles in the news. 

So dear friends, please refrain from sharing any travel updates or making such begging for blessings and also avoid posting the pictures of children. Cyber world is far more dangerous than the world we are used to and assume to be .

Shared in the public interest of being forewarned than repenting in leisure !!

Plight of Indian Workforce

I have heard that the personal space of an employee is protected vigorously in other countries whereas in my own backyard, it is not that much respected and I had occasion to witness both within a week.

One of my friend flew down from another state to visit me at my current location in the US and spent some good time extending his weekend. As he is a critical resource in the team, I casually asked as to how he could travel at such a short notice and he responded that he has enough leave and all he has to do is to update his calendar as PTO (Paid Time off) and that there is no practice of waiting for approval here, unless there are some exigencies. In fact, he went on to add that employees here claim leave as a matter of right, as and when it is available to them, and their leave requests are rarely turned down by their Managers.

In a closed group in social network I happened to see another post about the updates to the leave management policy of a leading nationalized bank in India. The circular on amended procedure explained as to how the Manager has to send the status of 'as on date employee's performance' against his targets while 'forwarding' the leave application and in the absence of the same the leave request will be summarily rejected.

I was aghast at the situation prevailing in India - atleast not yet changed since I left active service a decade ago ! Does this mean that if an employee's performance is not upto the expectations he cannot enjoy his promised privileges or exercise his rights which includes spending time with his family? Is this the work life balance that seems to be more breached as much it is preached ? Indian working conditions have a long way to go and it is time that such employees also raise their voice against the injustice.

This could also be considered as an abject failure of the representative bodies like unions and associations , supposed to safeguard the interest of the workforce, from which not a whimper is heard, at an order in writing impacting the personal life of employees. If a representative body is unable to resist such an interference into the personal life , is it not time to (re)think about its utility ?