How your bad diet may weigh on your job review
More companies are tracking employees’ medical data to cut costs
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-your-company-watching-your-weight-2013-02-25?link=SM_hp_plan
From the article:
Your company already knows whether you’ve been taking your meds, getting your teeth cleaned and going for regular medical checkups. Now some employers or their insurance companies are tracking what staffers eat, where they shop and how much weight they’re putting on — and taking action to keep them in line.
But companies have also started scrutinizing employees’ other behavior more discreetly. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina recently began buying spending data on more than 3 million people in its employer group plans.
Just think about it… that “frequent buyer card” from the grocery store, drug store… to get that “discounted price”
Also consider.. that rebate credit card that you carry… right now one of the major credit cards are giving card holders a 5% rebate this quarter for all charges from drug stores..
Do you use your credit card for purchases at a liquor store or the bar that you patronize?
Where else do you put items on your charge card that could reflect positively or negatively on your “life style
You could sign up for a “frequent buyer card” under a alias …but if you use your charge card to pay for the purchases… the vendor/charge card could link the two together…but… if you have a “frequent buyer card” under a alias and pay CASH… your “data” could get “scrambled”… and make it less possible of data collectors getting a complete “picture” of you and your “lifestyle”. The question has to be asked… should you sign up for different cards under different alias… should you provide your real email address or a email address at all… ?
Is the rebates/air miles and other things that we are being “given” by allowing access to some rather specific details about our lives… going to come back and bite us in the ass ?
How long has this data been collected and it is just getting out now, that it is being done… Have the data collectors got their data collection systems so sophisticated that they can develop data on us.. using various data points that would otherwise seem remote or obscure… that they consider their data collection system… can not be circumvented ?
Filed under: General Problems
I use my mother’s card at the grocery store and let her get the bonus points. I guess the powers that be will think that I don’t buy groceries.
Paying cash for anything you don’t want your employer to know about. Seems like a good idea. I don’t like having my RX filled where I work. Even if I get it free. I pay the $4.00 to have it filled at a corporate pharmacy. I work in a fishbowl. Big glass windows. Our “break” area is open to the public. All of us at work suffer lunch “invasions”. Everything from “what are you eating?” to “why are you sitting? I need my levothyroxine.” So any scrap, hint or whisper of privacy is very precious to me. If paying in cash gives me privacy, I’ll do it and forego the discount.
Article finishes with one of the most important questions of this decade