Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sounding Off: Dumont's C3 - Privacy vs. Safety?

Dear Editor,

I write today regarding Dumont's Citizen Communications Center on the borough's new website (http://www.dumontnj.gov/) introduced several weeks ago and featured in an earlier edition of this weekly.

The other day, I gave it a try. I clicked on the sign-up link and a new window popped up, taking me away from the borough website. Who is http://www.cyber-secure.net/? I noticed the site is patent protected. Good idea for the owner, but I think a patent certifies uniqueness, nothing else. A few more clicks took me to C3 Holdings, Xquizit Technologies and company president John Carrino, Esq. But I digress. On their privacy statement, a section states "Account holders may elect to deregister at anytime" then stops. Is my data removed from the database and from backup copies? Though the answer seems intuitive, it took an online uprising for Facebook to change their policy to do just that. I closed my online session without continuing.

The boro's June 19th press release ends with "This simple action could prove to be lifesaving one day". For those of us who have not registered yet, are we now less safe? It seems to contradict the press release itself by reiterating a reverse 911 system would still be in place.

I read in April that Old Tappan officials reviewed C3 but found their $18,000 annual fee too costly. Have Dumont officials conducted the same due diligence before choosing C3? In light of rising costs and losing our state aid this year, I go from feeling confused to worried about having to pay for this.

Sincerely,

Kai Chen
Dumont

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