Posts Tagged ‘Privacy’

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Protecting Data Rights and the Free Flow of Information

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

This challenge of protecting data online is really putting a muzzle on using the full potential of today’s information technology. If we can solve this issue of protecting people’s data rights, we could realize the full potential of information technology to maximize the real-time sharing of information. This would be information that is complete, accurate, and timely that supports technology initiatives such as augmented reality, real-time web, real-time sensor networks, and so on.

There is No 100% Data Protection Guarantee. joeandrieu.com blog posting, Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing, gets me thinking that maybe we should be taking a broader view of not just focusing on protecting personal data, but focus on restricting the wrongful use of data. Joe is right in that we should assume that data cannot be fully protected. There is always going to be a hacker or someone’s carelessness that will “spill the beans”. There is no guarantee that data or data “rights” can be protected.

Protecting Online Data Much Like We Protect Real-World Property. Many people do not understand the issue of online data protection, and there are a variety of opinions on how to protect data online. In many aspects, protecting data online is not that much different from protecting real-world property. For example, look at the measures we take to protect a laptop that an employee may use at work and at home. The employee has a responsibility of taking reasonable measures to protect the theft of the laptop. The employer also has policies in place to secure its property. The general community has a moral obligation to protect private property. The Government also has the responsibility to protect property and punish violators. This same holistic approach is needed for protecting data online. Individuals, communities, companies, and governments need to be involved in protecting data rights.

Data Protection Versus Protecting the Wrongful Use of Data. In many cases online data protection measures should follow how we protect real-world property, but there is a key difference with protecting online data. Online data can be copied and transferred anytime, anywhere. Because of this, it may be best to focus more on restricting the wrongful use of data versus putting all our focus on data ownership rights and how to protect data online. We need to define who owns data and take reasonable measure to protect it, but we also need to take a more holistic approach. This means focusing on restricting the wrongful use of data.

Preventing the Wrongful Use of Data and the Free Flow of Information. We all need to pitch in to prevent hackers, thieves, mob mentality, and careless people from wrongfully using online data. We should all be watchful to prevent the wrongful use of personal data. We should all encourage and foster ways for people to be compensated for producing valuable information and content. Wrongful use of data and content should be discouraged and even punished. If we only take a data protectionist approach, it offers no guarantee that data will be protected, and just as bad, protectionist policies discourage the free flow of data as well as limiting the full potential of information technology.


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Can We Have Both: Real-Time Data and Personal Data Privacy?

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Increasingly a major challenge for businesses is how to balance the need for real-time data and still protect the privacy of personal data. With information becoming so mobile and real-time on the internet, there is a real danger of people losing their rights to privacy and even their freedoms. The question for businesses and society is how can people enjoy rich, real-time information, and not lose their freedoms?

The Personal Data Privacy Challenge. Ideally, data needed for an application is freely available. Free, accessible data is easy to move and transfer between computers in real-time. There are challenges when data is Personally Identifiable Information (PII). This is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual. In these situations data is needed to be protected both at rest (storage) and in motion. This can be done through procedural methods such as password protection or the use of encryption. More and more businesses and application developers are balancing the need for the free movement of data versus the need for personal data privacy.

The Social Debate of Personal Privacy. Our society as a whole is still coming to terms with personal data privacy versus reaping the benefits of social networks and real-time data. An example of this is where Facebook made their privacy policy significantly less restrictive for their hundreds of millions of subscribers. See RWW’s posting Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over, for more on Facebook’s privacy changes. My comments on this were as follows:

“Is Facebook’s privacy settings leading us into a new era of social openness or are they arrogantly deciding for us that we need no privacy? I do not like Facebook’s cavalier and drastic approach in changing their privacy policy, but the real question is whether their privacy policy is reflecting social norms, and as a society should we be giving a way our privacy for the benefits of social networking.

Privacy is so closely tied to freedom. If someone wants to control you and knows everything about you, they can control you and take your freedom away. If someone wants to control you and they have no information about you, it is difficult for them to control you.

In the decades before the internet, Americans had a lot of privacy. I would say that this was not always the norm. When the U.S. was first founded, your neighbor’s usually knew everything about you. If you committed adultery, you received a Scarlet Letter. Everyone knew it. It was not until our society started to become more mobile that we began to have a high degree of privacy.

Now with information becoming so mobile, we are losing our privacy again. How can we enjoy all this rich, real-time information, and not lose our freedoms?”

The benefits of real-time data versus the risk of losing personal data privacy is a thorny issue. Businesses will need to balance these issues in light of customer needs, Government guidance, and business service offerings.


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The Controversies With Human Automatic Identification

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Automatic Identification Technologies (AIT) such as RFID and biometrics are not without controversies when it comes to human tracking and monitoring. AIT is a great enabler and labor-saver in the areas of logistics and supply chains. Automatic Identification Technologies automatically identify containers, parcels, and products to provide real-time visibility of movable assets. The challenge comes when AIT is used to track and monitor humans.

Human Tracking and Monitoring. Most controversies with automatic identification technology are related to where AIT is used to identify and track humans versus just tracking assets. Major AIT controversies include RFID tags and privacy, National identity cards, and the Biblical implications of AIT being the “mark of the beast”. See below for a description of the controversies with automatic identification technologies.


The Controversies With Human Automatic Identification Technologies


National ID Cards. At least for the U.S., the idea of a National ID card has stirred a lot of controversy. The issue is that these cards could be used to control or at least restrict our freedom of movement. With the events of 9-11, National IDs are being implemented at the state level for driver’s licenses. Many future driver license solutions involve AIT such as bar codes, and RFID. See posting, National ID Standards Becoming Law, for more on National ID standards with driver’s licenses, passports, and what is happening Internationally.

RFID and Privacy. RFID tags have caused a lot of controversy when they are used to track or monitor the behavior of human beings. RFID tags do have the capability to infringe on people’s privacy. RFID tag capabilities that are disconcerting include: they have an unique ID that can be tied to an individual, they are able to determine the location and activities of an individual, and they can track people without their knowledge. See posting, RFID Tag Privacy Concerns, for more information.

The Mark of the Beast. In Revelation 13:17 it does say, “And no many might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast …” For people that believe the Bible, it can be interpreted that bar codes stamped on humans, human-embedded RFID tags, or human-embedded smart chips can be the “mark of the beast”. Recently a group of Amish farmers in Michigan filed a lawsuit claiming RFID chips required on cattle “are a mark of the beast”. See Wired posting, Bush Administration: Dismiss RFID ‘Mark of the Beast’ Lawsuit. Also, see Altered Dimensions posting, The Mark of the Beast, on more on this human automatic identification controversy.


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