Slightly Off KIlter

How “personal” is the information about the car I drive?

If I stay in a motel, I am usually asked for the make, model, and plate number of my car when I register. Likewise, when I have worked for companies that issue parking stickers (for parking on what is, after all, private property), I am asked for the same information.

Why, then, is it, that when I work for a company that doesn’t issue parking permits, and I suggest a (voluntary) Company database of employee automobile information, do I get the reaction “Oh, my, I don’t know if we could ask for that. That’s personal information!” This has happened more than once or twice.

Uh huh. My home telephone number is “personal information” yet my company routinely asks for that. They want to be able to reach me “in case of emergency”. But somehow, asking for my automobile information is an invasion of privacy? Instead, if someone’s lights are on or there’s a fender bender in the parking lot, we send out little notes across the company:

Does anyone drive a green BMW sedan, license GRN SDN? Your lights are on… and a tree just fell on your car.

It’s not like I’m suggesting a mandatory database. Even if I was (and I can’t), what makes this information private? If I want to know what make and model car you drive, I merely have to watch out the window when you drive into the parking lot in the morning.

I’ve begun to wonder if the “privacy” question is simply a euphemism for “we don’t want to bother”.