Re:Amazon owns more than $2B worth of IPv4 addresses
by saalweachter on Saturday December 12, 2020 @10:53AM
(#25398975)
I know you're being nice here, and I have no idea if that particular user cared, but like, as someone who has to take frequent user data/trust/privacy/handling trainings, like, don't ever do that.
Firstly, you really want to engineer your systems as much as possible so that you can't look at any PII -- and that includes things like usernames that aren't displayed to the public, and maybe even ones that are! -- as an administrator of your system, without going through some sort of "break glass in case of emergency" process that leaves an audit trail with a clear policy of when it is acceptable.
Second, even if you have access for job-related tasks, you shouldn't spontaneously try to tie user accounts to outside identities; that should be like line 4 or 5 in your data access policy. The right way to do the above would be something like saying "Thanks for vouching for us! If you message me your username @XYZ, I'll add some extra bandwidth credits to your account. :)"; that turns the interaction/demasking into something voluntary on the user's behalf, rather than you creepily stalking them through your user DB.
Firstly, you really want to engineer your systems as much as possible so that you can't look at any PII -- and that includes things like usernames that aren't displayed to the public, and maybe even ones that are! -- as an administrator of your system, without going through some sort of "break glass in case of emergency" process that leaves an audit trail with a clear policy of when it is acceptable.
Second, even if you have access for job-related tasks, you shouldn't spontaneously try to tie user accounts to outside identities; that should be like line 4 or 5 in your data access policy. The right way to do the above would be something like saying "Thanks for vouching for us! If you message me your username @XYZ, I'll add some extra bandwidth credits to your account. :)"; that turns the interaction/demasking into something voluntary on the user's behalf, rather than you creepily stalking them through your user DB.