This blog seeks to explore and discuss how Illustrated Faith threats the Personally Identifiable Information, or PII, of their customers. PII is “information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, either alone or when combined with other personal or identifying information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual.” This is information like full names, addresses, birth dates, credit card information, and the like.
As a customer of Illustrated Faith, I have a personal interest in this discussion. I have purchased items from both of the websites on which they do e-commerce, and therefore, the company has my PII. I hope that this blog will only serve to assuage any worries of the customers of Illustrated Faith.
First off, I would like to disclose that I have seen ads for Illustrated Faith follow me to other websites. Illustrated Faith is one of the brands that uses the type of advertising that can do that. If you, say, visit the website and leave an item in your cart unpurchased, the company may use that information to serve you ads reminding you of that. But, the information that someone visited a website and then didn’t complete a transaction there is not PII. This information, though it may seem “creepy” or invasive to some, cannot really considered personal or particularly identifying.
One of the first things I look at when I am deciding whether to trust a company with my personal information is to see if they have a secure connection. A secure connection can be identified by the usual HTTP:// being replaced with a green HTTPS:// at the beginning of a webaddress as well as a green lock. Basically, this secure connection is an extra layer of encryption that protects your PII as it travels from your server to the destination server. Also, this secure connection indicates that a company is serious about keeping your information safe.
Illustrated Faith does e-commerce on two different websites, and both have this secure connection when it comes time to complete your order and add in your PII. The first website is their homepage illustratedfaith.com, and the e-commerce on this website mainly consists of buying digital products. The other website is dayspring.com and includes the purchase of physical goods with the Illustrated Faith Brand. These two screenshots demonstrate the secure connection:
Knowing that one company has my PII on two different websites gives me mixed feelings. Firstly, my thought is that it must increase the chances that my information can be hacked into somehow, but then I remember that the security on the two websites run by the same company are likely very similar. I am still torn on what to think about this, and whether it increases, decreases, or doesn’t change the possibility of my information being compromised.
Another way I try and protect my PII is through using Paypal. Both of Illustrated Faith’s e-commerce sites include paypal as a payment option when you attempt to check out with a purchase. This is a great benefit, and not all sellers use it. Many customers of Paypal sign up for this site solely so that they do not have to send as much of their PII to multiple companies. Of course, they are still trusting Paypal with their PII. But many customers feel safer with this option. Of course, Paypal themselves have experienced data breaches in the past, so whether it truly protects more or not seems impossible to judge.
Overall, I would say that Illustrated Faith protects the PII of their customers fairly well. I have never had any issues with them including sensitive information in emails like my credit card number, or anything of the sort. I trust them with my information, and it is nice to see the secure connection as well as the Paypal option. It really does seem like the company cares about their customers feeling safe and secure when it comes to their PII.
As a customer of Illustrated Faith, I have a personal interest in this discussion. I have purchased items from both of the websites on which they do e-commerce, and therefore, the company has my PII. I hope that this blog will only serve to assuage any worries of the customers of Illustrated Faith.
First off, I would like to disclose that I have seen ads for Illustrated Faith follow me to other websites. Illustrated Faith is one of the brands that uses the type of advertising that can do that. If you, say, visit the website and leave an item in your cart unpurchased, the company may use that information to serve you ads reminding you of that. But, the information that someone visited a website and then didn’t complete a transaction there is not PII. This information, though it may seem “creepy” or invasive to some, cannot really considered personal or particularly identifying.
Secure Connection
One of the first things I look at when I am deciding whether to trust a company with my personal information is to see if they have a secure connection. A secure connection can be identified by the usual HTTP:// being replaced with a green HTTPS:// at the beginning of a webaddress as well as a green lock. Basically, this secure connection is an extra layer of encryption that protects your PII as it travels from your server to the destination server. Also, this secure connection indicates that a company is serious about keeping your information safe.
Illustrated Faith does e-commerce on two different websites, and both have this secure connection when it comes time to complete your order and add in your PII. The first website is their homepage illustratedfaith.com, and the e-commerce on this website mainly consists of buying digital products. The other website is dayspring.com and includes the purchase of physical goods with the Illustrated Faith Brand. These two screenshots demonstrate the secure connection:
My PII on Two Websites?
Knowing that one company has my PII on two different websites gives me mixed feelings. Firstly, my thought is that it must increase the chances that my information can be hacked into somehow, but then I remember that the security on the two websites run by the same company are likely very similar. I am still torn on what to think about this, and whether it increases, decreases, or doesn’t change the possibility of my information being compromised.
Paypal Option
Another way I try and protect my PII is through using Paypal. Both of Illustrated Faith’s e-commerce sites include paypal as a payment option when you attempt to check out with a purchase. This is a great benefit, and not all sellers use it. Many customers of Paypal sign up for this site solely so that they do not have to send as much of their PII to multiple companies. Of course, they are still trusting Paypal with their PII. But many customers feel safer with this option. Of course, Paypal themselves have experienced data breaches in the past, so whether it truly protects more or not seems impossible to judge.
Summary
Overall, I would say that Illustrated Faith protects the PII of their customers fairly well. I have never had any issues with them including sensitive information in emails like my credit card number, or anything of the sort. I trust them with my information, and it is nice to see the secure connection as well as the Paypal option. It really does seem like the company cares about their customers feeling safe and secure when it comes to their PII.
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