A short and funny story. On the thick layer of ice covering a part of a pavement of Laugavegur, the main shopping street of Reykjavik, I found a lonely debit card. In Iceland it also serves as an ID, there is a picture of the owner, kennitala (a security service number similar to Polish PESEL) and a bank account number. What should I do in this situation in a huge city like Warsaw? Probably go to a bank, contact the police? In Iceland it took me less then 1 minute to find its owner. As mot of personal data (yes, the ‘sensitive’ one, which is restricted in Europe) is accessible on-line, the quickest way is to use the most popular website ja.is. Almost all the Icelandic phone numbers, addresses and names are stored there. That’s like a modern version of old ‘telephone book’ merged with a map. Finally, as only 2 women with the same specific name (Ingibjörg G.) are in the base (you only look for names and patronymic name, there are no surnames in Icelandic society!), both living in Reykjavik, I could send an sms to each of them asking if they don’t miss their debit card somehow.. One of them just picked up her belonging few minutes ago. And that’s the end of the short story.
I’d already seen people forgetting they credit card in the local shop, so it may be not an unusual situation at all. So it’s just enough to put your name on your belongings, and sooner or later they will come back to you magically. Isn’t it a beautiful illustration how ‘THE EFFECT OF THE VILLAGE’ works? :))))
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