Doubleplusungood (a.k.a. Subway Signs, part II)
Last night, in the process of sorting through a bunch of old pictures I'd downloaded from my cell phone's camera, I came across this gem I'd captured on my London trip a while back.
I saw multiple copies of this sign plastered along the walls in every Tube station I visited. I guess it wasn't so much the sheer audacity of it that really caught my attention as the irony of seeing it in London. Never mind the fact that "much, much[,] more" is so vague as to be (unintentionally?) creepy, nor that none of this watching did any good last summer. In fact, it hasn't done much good the whole time the "ring of steel" has been up, other than to piss off a fair number of Britons. What I wonder is, where was that vaunted dry British humo(u)r when the ad agency drew up these signs? Orwell, it seems, was spot on—only around twenty years too early. (Edit: six months later, the situation hasn't gotten any less obnoxious—only more so.)
To be fair, Sweden is no picnic, either. Before I came here, I had followed with some interest the burgeoning privacy debate back home, as well as (what I thought was) the European approach to this same problem. With the exception of the UK, I had thought that most of Europe had fairly strict and pro-consumer privacy laws—collectively, the idea that your information belongs to you unless you say otherwise.
As it turns out, not so much.
According to what I've been told by merchants here, by law every credit card transaction I make must be supported by presenting my personal ID number. So not only is it possible for someone other than the credit card company to keep track of what I buy, it is a certainty that someone does—and that someone is no less than the federal government.
Occasionally, this idiocy leads to absurd conversations like this one:
I've had this conversation so many times since I got here that I now basically just pay in cash most of the time. At least that way I don't have to deal with a cashier who sounds like he's coughing up a hairball every time I want to buy a damn toaster.
Postscript: I had intended this to be a one-time rant about the lack of privacy in Sweden, but since I wrote it, I keep running into news items that just pile on the stupid. For instance:
I saw multiple copies of this sign plastered along the walls in every Tube station I visited. I guess it wasn't so much the sheer audacity of it that really caught my attention as the irony of seeing it in London. Never mind the fact that "much, much[,] more" is so vague as to be (unintentionally?) creepy, nor that none of this watching did any good last summer. In fact, it hasn't done much good the whole time the "ring of steel" has been up, other than to piss off a fair number of Britons. What I wonder is, where was that vaunted dry British humo(u)r when the ad agency drew up these signs? Orwell, it seems, was spot on—only around twenty years too early. (Edit: six months later, the situation hasn't gotten any less obnoxious—only more so.)
To be fair, Sweden is no picnic, either. Before I came here, I had followed with some interest the burgeoning privacy debate back home, as well as (what I thought was) the European approach to this same problem. With the exception of the UK, I had thought that most of Europe had fairly strict and pro-consumer privacy laws—collectively, the idea that your information belongs to you unless you say otherwise.
As it turns out, not so much.
According to what I've been told by merchants here, by law every credit card transaction I make must be supported by presenting my personal ID number. So not only is it possible for someone other than the credit card company to keep track of what I buy, it is a certainty that someone does—and that someone is no less than the federal government.
Occasionally, this idiocy leads to absurd conversations like this one:
Cashier: Hej!
BR: Hej. I'd like to buy this {vacuum cleaner, waffle iron, wireless router, gasoline-powered screwdriver, etc.} please. Here's my credit card.
Cashier: Legitimation? (Pronounced, invariably, with the snotty Stockholm accent—last syllable as "cchhooon" and not "shoon," as it would be anywhere else in Sweden.)
BR: Unfortunately, I don't have a Swedish Identity Card—I'm an American living and working here. I have my US Passport and a photo ID, though.
Cashier: Sorry, I can't accept that credit card without some legitimaccchhhooon.
BR: Are you saying that you'd accept my US-issued credit card, then?
Cashier: Ja, absolutely. That's fine.
BR: Let me get this straight. You refuse to accept a credit card issued by one of Sweden's largest banks without formal, state-issued ID. But you will happily accept a credit card issued by, say, Bob Bumblefuck's Federated Credit Union—an overseas bank you've never heard of, let alone one whose existence you could actually verify—with a smudged fourth-generation photocopy of someone's fake ID that doesn't even vaguely resemble me. Is that about right?
Cashier: Ja visst!
BR: Does that actually make any sense to you?
Cashier: Legitimacccccchhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooon!!!
I've had this conversation so many times since I got here that I now basically just pay in cash most of the time. At least that way I don't have to deal with a cashier who sounds like he's coughing up a hairball every time I want to buy a damn toaster.
Postscript: I had intended this to be a one-time rant about the lack of privacy in Sweden, but since I wrote it, I keep running into news items that just pile on the stupid. For instance:
- A good three decades before the domestic spying fiasco in the US, Sweden had its very own version. So very ahead of its time. (Update 9 March 2007: It's still happening. And it may soon get even worse.)
- A recent report found Sweden to be second-worst in all of Europe when it comes to protecting privacy, exceeded only by (wait for it)... the UK. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
- Think your salary is nobody's business? Wrong. Despite the fact that discussing one's salary is apparently considered a major social faux pas in Sweden, it turns out anyone can look up this information online, for free.
posted by Biff at 18:41
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