While everyone knows Santa maintains the most invasive, robust, 7x24x365 data surveillance operation in existence against mankind as a whole; nonetheless, far from being called under scrutiny or criticized by privacy advocates, this operations center grew dramatically and saw vast improvements in accuracy throughout the 2008 calendar year.
Santa’s insatiable appetite to know who’s been good and who’s been naughty is the motivatation for doing such a meticulous job collecting and analyzing data on every individual. As with any surveillance operation there are always a variety of gaps in time for which one cannot account for the behavior and location of an individual. However this surveillance gap closed to some degree this year. Jolly lucky for Santa, when certain airlines began refusing cash for in flight sales in lieu of credit cards, Santa’s ability to see that someone had indulged in binge drinking on a flight is now possible. Other gains in 2008 were seen in many areas including, more phones with GPS and cameras, parking garages only accepting credit cards ... making one’s anonymous presence in that location more difficult.
Of course, Santa is benevolent. So, virtually no one has a problem with Santa’s surveillance operation and related data centers.
Also worthy of mention; the Santa's data governance and overall IT security must be extraordinary as there continue to be zero reports of a breach. (If there were a breach the operation would have had to make a public disclosure -- as mandated by law -- duh!)
And on an unrelated note, if I were to make a prediction, the notion of giving people who have been naughty a piece of coal in their stocking is possibly a policy that needs to be reconsidered … for obvious reasons.
(*) Forward looking statements contained in this report are opinion only and should not be counted as facts or performance predictions.
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