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Weinberger on Privacy
David Weinberger, author of Everything Is Miscellaneous, has written a typically thoughtful and thought-provoking piece about privacy in the digital age:
- The Privacy Non-Principle by David Weinberger, Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization (August 31 , 2007)
Back before the information age, privacy had a fairly well-defined set of applications. It covered what authorities could ask about you, and acts you wouldn't feel comfortable performing in the middle of a skating rink. But now it applies to wherever there's information. And nowadays, everything is information.
Although a lot of David's examples deal with online merchants, I believe much of this applies to government information as well. One way it does is summed up in David's quote of Brad Templeton's law : "If you make something easy to do, it will be done more often."
And more:
The easier it is to give somebody ID information, the more often it will be done. And the easier it is to give ID information, the more palatable it is to ask for, or demand it.
If we agree to systems that only allow us to get "authentic" government information from government-controlled web servers, it will be easy for government to ask for and even demand personal information -- and easier for users to give that information. And once the government has that information, the same principle applies to government's use of our personal information. That situation is one that we do not want to encourage or facilitate, regardless of current policies and principles of existing government agencies.
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Data Sharing between Agencies: FDA/DOD and VA/DOD
Two stories today on agencies sharing data: 1. FDA, Defense Department Share Data to Enhance Medical Product Safety Reviews http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01675.html 2. DOD and VA open a new medical data spigot http://govhealthit.com/article103423-08-03-07-Web In both cases there are clear advantages to sharing the data. In the case of the FDA, they can get access to much larger pools of results on clinical trials and actual use of drugs and medical devices; in the case of the DOD/VA share, doctors will be able to get a better picture of their patients' overall health and care since the VA and DOD populations overlap substantially. One obvious advantage would be the ability to prevent bad drug interactions because doctors would know everything prescribed to their patients. Differences in the two sharing projects are that the first will be designed as a shared structure from the ground up while the DOD/VA project will work with pre-existing systems. Initially, the VA/DOD systems will not be fully compatible across software, but in time the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) program will evolve into Clinical Data Repository/Health Data Repository (CHDR) which will allow direct input/querying/reporting of health data. I think we can assume that breaches of patient data will occur, especially as the data is restructured and/or designed from the beginning to facilitate interoperability. After all, one of the agencies above is the VA. So, are the benefits (well-described data is also more easily published and potentially more easily located data) worth the risk of leaked patient data? Many, many people take multiple medications every day - some which interact, some which have detrimental effects that only become apparent after usage in groups far larger than those included in clinical trials. At the same time, data is lost on a regular basis by many agencies (see GAO's Personal Information: Data Breaches...). Yet, evidence of actual harm from data breaches is limited (although GAO notes that absence of evidence doesn't equal evidence of absence). The GAO report on Personal Information says
For example, more than 570 data breaches were reported in the news media from January 2005 through December 2006, according to lists maintained by private groups that track reports of breaches. ... The extent to which data breaches have resulted in identity theft is not well known, largely because of the difficulty of determining the source of the data used to commit identity theft. However, available data and interviews with researchers, law enforcement officials, and industry representatives indicated that most breaches have not resulted in detected incidents of identity theft, particularly the unauthorized creation of new accounts. For example, in reviewing the 24 largest breaches reported in the media from January 2000 through June 2005, GAO found that 3 included evidence of resulting fraud on existing accounts and 1 included evidence of unauthorized creation of new accounts. For 18 of the breaches, no clear evidence had been uncovered linking them to identity theft; and for the remaining 2, there was not sufficient information to make a determination.Continue reading
Google: “We don’t know enough about you”… yet.
There are big privacy implications of relying on private sector companies like Google instead of libraries to index knowledge. One of the biggest problems is that, in the age of the web, search engines don't just index content and help you find it, they also track what you use and how you use it, thus learning more about you. They don't just index what you want to find, they index you too.
An interview with Google's chief executive shows that this is Google's explicit goal.
- Google's goal: to organise your daily life, By Caroline Daniel and Maija Palmer, Financial Times, May 22 2007. "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and "What job shall I take?'" The race to accumulate the most comprehensive database of individual information has become the new battleground for search engines as it will allow the industry to offer far more personalised advertisements. These are the holy grail for the search industry, as such advertising would command higher rates. Mr Schmidt told journalists in London: "We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don't know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google's expansion."
An OpEd in today's Los Angeles Times examines these comments...
- Is Google's data grinder dangerous?, By Andrew Keen Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2007. Still, if iGoogle turns out to be half as wise about each of us as Schmidt predicts, then this artificial intelligence will challenge traditional privacy rights as well as provide us with an excuse to deny responsibility for our own actions. What happens, for example, when the government demands access to our iGoogle records? And will we be able to sue iGoogle if it advises us to make an unwise career decision?
As Keen says, "Google is not our friend. Schmidt's iGoogle vision of the future is not altruistic, and his company is not a nonprofit group dedicated to the realization of human self-understanding." See also: Privacy: "I have nothing to hide"
Continue readingPrivacy: “I have nothing to hide”
"I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy by Daniel J. Solove, George Washington University Law School San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, No. #, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289.
Abstract: In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the "nothing to hide" argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: "I've got nothing to hide." According to the "nothing to hide" argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The "nothing to hide" argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the "nothing to hide" argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings. Keywords: privacy, nothing to hide, data mining, surveillance
Excerpt:
The "nothing to hide" argument speaks to some problems, but not to others. It represents a singular and narrow way of conceiving of privacy, and it wins by excluding consideration of the other problems often raised in government surveillance and data mining programs. When engaged with directly, the "nothing to hide" argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the "nothing to hide" argument, in the end, has nothing to say.
Thanks to Patrice McDermott and GovInfo News (7-11-2007). See also: Privacy and the "Terrorist Surveillance Act".
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