I have always been an advocate of speaking of “data” rather than of “databases”, and have always felt that hiding data within large integrated database systems is a danger not only to the quality of the data but to the owners of the data themselves: the customers.

A couple of recent events illustrate this very well.

My neighbour received an e-mail confirming that his telephone and internet cancellation request had been received and that he would be cut off in the summer of 2008. My neighbour had made no cancellation request. Calls to the call centre – as to any call centre – are to people whose access to data is severely restricted. They could not see who had made this request, why it was made, what the consequences might be. By the same token they could do little about the issue except make a note of the situation and to start a process to cancel the cancellation. These operators are never allowed to pass you on to somebody who has access to more information or who can take other actions.

Bad enough, and it makes me paranoid to think that people, for whatever reason, could take actions like cancelling my ‘phone on my behalf. But today my neighbour’s telephone was cut off, 10 months before the date and without reference to the fact that this was in error. The company’s system has been unable to make any connection between the command to cut off the line, the command to stop this and the demand of the customer to rectify the error.

In my own case, a certain person has requested a cable internet connection at my address, where she does not live and has never lived. This error is known to the cable company, yet they are unable to access their data in their systems to correct it properly. I have informed them, and presumably they now know where this lady really lives, because she would have complained about not getting the connection she requested (I sent the couriers with the hardware away with a flea in their ears). Yet letters continue to arrive from that company to the non-resident lady because of data quality and system integration issues which they seem powerless to correct.

The next step, I fear, is that the company will assume that the address correction is a house move and cut off my connection. Their system seems to allow two owners of a single connection, and nobody is aware that there is a data quality problem. Explaining this to the operators in call centres does nothing to resolve the basic problems.

My own ISP has made more errors in my account in the past 3 months than … but OK, you’re getting the picture.

By hiding the data within their systems these companies will never be aware that there is an issue to be resolved. As far as they are concerned the system is not throwing up error messages and there is therefore no reason to assume that the system is working incorrectly. The path between customer and data is long and protective walls have been built which prevent more than a limited amount of information about such errors reaching anybody who either cares or who can do anything about it. Losing my television for a period wouldn’t be a major worry. Losing my internet connection would be a much greater problem. By the same token we are all at risk of the inflexibilities of such systems if, for example, we get mistaken for terrorists because our names are similar to somebody else’s and access to the data to verify this is blocked.

How do we make companies aware that they have data quality and data systems problems? I wish I knew. Perhaps somebody from one of those companies (KPN, XS4ALL, UPC) with read this, will care, and will want to change things. If they do: contact me.

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