It is always awkward if you purchase something embarrassing or sensitive, and someone finds the receipt, right? Or your partner finds the receipt for a present you bought them? Well, the Wall Street Journal found that Square has been sending millions of receipts to the wrong person. It has created some very difficult situations.
Square has forwarded receipts documenting transactions as mundane as a cup of coffee and as sensitive as an obstetrician’s visit to people who were uninvolved in the purchases, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. In some cases, neither the purchaser nor the recipient could say why Square sent receipts to the people it did. At issue are the methods that tech companies employ to make money off of the financial data of their users, as well as the degree to which those companies disclose or get consent from their users about those efforts. Data on individuals’ credit-card transactions can be particularly delicate and more revealing than their social-media posts or web-browsing activity.
Check It Out: Square Sends Sensitive Receipts to the Wrong Person
As a brick-and-mortar retailer, I had to drop the use of Square to satisfy the PCI-DSS requirements for my credit card service provider. The only reason they gave was the lack of controls by Square makes PCI compliance impossible. Even though I explained that I know more about PCI than the people who have to implement it after retiring from the industry, I was never given a satisfactory answer as to why. This may be the reason.