This morning I heard that in honor of Mother’s Day, Dairy Queen would give you a free cake if you would just send them an email with your baby’s birth certificate attached. What!? Did I hear correctly? So, I did a search, and sure enough, there it was; on a list on the ABC News Blog (see screen image below):
“Dairy Queen: Any mom who gives birth on Mother’s Day can email a copy of her baby’s birth certificate to DairyQueen@piersongrant.com by noon Eastern Time on Saturday, May 31 to receive a free DQ cake. Requests must include the mother’s full name, email, phone number and complete mailing address.”
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Whose horrible idea was this? With child identity theft increasing, parents definitely should not be sending their children’s birth certificates, along with their name, residential address, phone and email, to some marketing company hired by Dairy Queen in exchange for free cake. The data on that birth certificate can be used for identity theft and identity fraud, and give your child a bad credit rating years before they actually start needing to get loans and credit cards…and possibly before they can even walk! Not to mention the safety issues with sending additional information about where you live.
I wanted to warn those reading the ABC News Blog about this risk, so I posted a comment, as shown here, pending approval from the website folks:
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They did not approve it!
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What, ABC News, you don’t want your readers warned about the risks of child identity theft related to sending their birth certificates to others? So, I tried posting again, and again they did not approve and deleted it!
So, I tried the following:
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And once more, they deleted it!
I tried again, and they deleted again.
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Is protecting the marketing message of Dairy Queen, and the marketer PiersonGrant.Com more important to them than addressing, and making people aware of, the child identity threat risks that their actions are creating? Is doing such a privacy-poor action really worth it? Very disappointing, ABC News Blog!
So, I decided to send some Tweets to them. Here were the three most recent:
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As expected, no responses.
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Sending a birth certificate via email, as Dairy Queen and their marketer Pierson Grant are requesting you to do, is a huge and completely unnecessary risk and very thoughtless, privacy-negligent practice; it puts your child at risk of identity theft. And there are certainly MANY other ways in which you can establish yourself as a mother who gave birth on Mother’s Day without sending your child’s birth certificate! What are they going to do with all those birth certificates after this marketing campaign is over!? Who are they going to sell them to!? How will they continue to use them!? They do not answer these questions anywhere.
Child identity theft is a real and growing problem. Do not send children’s personal information, including a birth certificate, through email to potentially many unknown others, just for a free ice cream cake. Especially with your name, email, phone number and residential address sent along with it. If this data is used inappropriately, you could ruin your child’s credit rating, and it may not be caught for years. There are many studies that show this. Here is just one. Other more recent studies show numbers are increasing significantly. All this information…just for cake!!…also creates a significant safety issue for you and your family.
Here are some recent articles about this growing problem, and some steps you can take to help prevent it:
- Identity thieves targeting kids
- New Law Protects Children from Identity Theft
- A Parent’s Guide to Stopping Child Identity Theft
- A mom’s guide to keeping a child’s identity safe
- Wisconsin putting the freeze on child identity theft
And, here is a great site from my good friend Mari Frank about all types of identity theft: “Identity Theft Prevention and Survival”
I am so glad I was live-streaming Great Day this morning while working; that is where I heard that Dairy Queen was making this offer…thanks for reporting this, Lou!
Tell Dairy Queen to stop doing such DUMB, RISKY and UNNECESSARY marketing campaigns, and putting sensitive personal information…of children…at risk!
And, tell ABC News to think more about the privacy risks of their posted requests…and putting children at risk, instead of deleting useful information to protect their marketers!
Tags: ABC News, Dairy Queen, Great Day, identity theft, marketing, online safety, Pierson Grant, privacy, Rebecca Herold