Why does Sydney Airport need your personal details including date of birth to connect to the wifi?

[Mattg]

I was slightly shocked when attempting to login to the airport wifi at SYD Terminal 1 this morning at all the required fields.

Why do they need information such as my date of birth and phone number, and what are they doing with all that data?!

 

[RooFlyer]

Because there is a good secondary market in personal data?

 

[StayGoldPonyboy]

They're going to get a lot of cough data.

 

[Himeno]

Adverting.
They'll sell your data then you'll get spammed by ads.

 

[serfty]

There should be a link on the registration form to information advising what they are gunna do with that data.

The link may not be obvious and the co tent may be hard to read.

 

[kpc]

Do you have to put your real dob?

 

[justinbrett]

Sydney airport is far from alone - majority of public wifi worldwide does this. UAE malls are terrible for this.

 

[Mattg]

There should be a link on the registration form to information advising what they are gunna do with that data.

The link may not be obvious and the co tent may be hard to read.

I clicked on the link to the privacy policy, but after several minutes of reading through this, I still couldn't work out why they needed the data or what they would do with it.

 

[Himeno]

Sydney airport is far from alone - majority of public wifi worldwide does this. UAE malls are terrible for this.

I've used the free wifi at ANC, YYZ, ORD, LAX, JFK, DCA and ORH over the past 3 weeks. The most any of them has asked for is email. Most not even that.
Some of them only asked me to watch a 30 second ad with no sound.

 

[Lynda2475]

Just set up a Gmail/hotmail account in a fake name and provide fake details.

 

[dajop]

Just set up a Gmail/hotmail account in a fake name and provide fake details.

Probably no need to actually set up an account. At MEL to connect to wifi I just use a completely fake email, with minimal letters. There is no validation it just connects.

 

[Quickstatus]

No requirement to use a real personal details. Just put in fake ones

 

[SeatBackForward]

DOB 1/1/90
Email: [email protected]

Usually works.

 

[tdimdad]

I always use fake details on those. Phone 0400000000, dob 1/1/80, email [email protected] or similar, destination <wherever I'd love to go>, etc. Some of the forms have validation to weed out the most obvious fakes but there's always a way around that.
Makes one wonder what is the value of collecting the data in the first place when it's accuracy and therefore reliability is near zero.

 

[RooFlyer]

sometimes of course you do need a real email address because they'll email you a login. That’s why you need a handy junk email address for these sorts of things.

and I don’t think Sydney Airport would care if you used other fake details - they'd just sell the same. Ker-ching.

 

[VPS]

sometimes of course you do need a real email address because they'll email you a login. That’s why you need a handy junk email address for these sorts of things.

and I don’t think Sydney Airport would care if you used other fake details - they'd just sell the same. Ker-ching.

I have so many email addresses for this sort of stuff

 

[UP4014]

They don't need it and suggest don't give it to them.

Suggest we all log in to their wifi with the same DOB.

 

[Scarlett]

I’m another that just types any random characters when wifi login says you need to provide something. 90% of the time they’re not actually mailing you a link so you don’t need to use a real email.

Hi, I’m sodisidjehs skdididjfjdnd and my email is: [email protected]

Did the country of origin field have an alphabetical drop down menu to select from? If so, I bet you they will have a seriously overpopulated user base from Afghanistan!

 

[dajop]

I'm lazy. If I can get away with [email protected] I will. none of this 10+ character nonsense.

 

[Hvr]

Phone numbers for fictional purposes | ACMA

www.acma.gov.au

Lots of real looking phone numbers here that are fake.

I use them when writing training guides.

This one's for you SYD AP.