Abandoned Post-It Notes

I have noticed a recent increase in the number of post-it notes that seem to be discarded on the ground in public areas such as streets and shopping centres. Many of these post-it notes contain seemingly random and useless squiggles and bits of text, probably jotted down as notes at some stage, however, more alarmingly, many of the post-it notes I have noticed contain names and their associated mobile phone numbers, and in one case even included a full residential address and the time of an arranged meeting at that address.

Many people seem to derive some pleasure from overhearing the strange details of other people’s lives when they insist on shouting them through a mobile phone in a supermarket. Whist this provides some insight in to the life of the shouter, it isn’t static, and there is no real permanent record of the conversation, and the details are usually quite vague. In comparison to these post-it notes littered with private information, the phone calls are quite innocuous.

I wonder, am I the only one who has noticed this recent surge in discarded post-it notes? And I also wonder, given the way post-it notes are used to record all sorts of important and confidential business information, how much commercially sensitive data is being inadvertently leaked in this way?

Probably even more concerning is the first thing I thought after spotting two discarded post-it notes yesterday…”I really need to start taking the camera with me”.

Samuel