ALKHOBAR: Last week I received an e-mail requesting that I fill out a survey being circulated by an MBA student in Kuwait named Walid. As part of his thesis requirements, Walid was asking people to respond to a survey about switching mobile phone providers in the GCC.
Five seconds into the survey it became clear that Walid was perhaps the worst prepared MBA student on the planet. The survey began by asking the respondent’s country of residence — all GCC countries were offered as selections. Then the survey asked for the respondent’s current mobile provider — Zain, Mobily or STC. Virtual alarms went off in my head. Such choices are only possible if the respondent lives in Saudi Arabia.
It was clear that either there were serious problems in the survey preparation or this wasn’t an MBA survey at all. The survey went on to ask for personal information such as monthly income, gender and age. If an individual completed the survey, it should be returned to [email protected], which is not a university hosted mailbox. When people send e-mail, often a signature containing contact details is automatically added to their message. Walid was about to collect quite a bit of information that if not used for identity theft or malicious social engineering, could certainly be compiled into an targeted marketing list which could be sold for a handsome profit.
I fired off an e-mail to Walid asking him to explain his behavior. He replied that he is attending a branch of a German management school based in Kuwait. He also claimed that his questionnaire was approved by three professors. Even worse, he stated that, “Out of more than 600 respondents so far you’re the only one complained about it.”
What a nightmare! People want to help students so they are happily filling out the survey and returning it in a far from anonymous manner. Additionally, because this survey is about telecom providers, who many people love to hate, chances are that this supposed student will receive many responses. Even if Walid is a student, there is nothing to stop him from analyzing the data for his MBA and then creating that incredible marketing list.
Four days after the original e-mail was received, after being contacted by Arab News, the head of Academic Affairs at the institute involved sent a response indicating that he was attempting to track down the student and his adviser. He confirmed that the student’s actions were against the business school’s policies which require that research masks the identities of the respondents. The professor advised that the incident would be taken seriously, and that the institute’s research practices would be revised to encompass new technologies.
That’s not much comfort for anyone who may have responded to the survey and the institute has no ability to gain control of the data Walid has already gathered. Truthfully, more often than not the best way to help yourself and others is to press “delete” when you receive an e-mail asking for your assistance.