Excellent talk by Guardians Glenn Greenwald. A potential problem with the governments harvest of personal data is one I call exclusion. Exclusion occurs when people are prevented from having knowledge about how information about them is being used, and when they are barred from accessing and correcting errors in that data. Many government national-security measures involve maintaining a huge database of information that individuals cannot access. Indeed, because they involve national security, the very existence of these programs is often kept secret. This kind of information processing, which blocks subjects knowledge and involvement, is a kind of due-process problem. It is a structural problem, involving the way people are treated by government institutions and creating a power imbalance between people and the government. To what extent should government officials have such a significant power over citizens? This issue isnt about what information people want to hide but about the power and the structure of government. A related problem involves secondary use. Secondary use is the exploitation of data obtained for one purpose for an unrelated purpose without the subjects consent. How long will personal data be stored? How will the information be used? What could it be used for in the future? The potential uses of any piece of personal information are vast. Without limits on or accountability for how that information is used, it is hard for people to assess the dangers of the datas being in the governments control. Yet another problem with government gathering and use of personal data is distortion. Although personal information can reveal quite a lot about peoples personalities and activities, it often fails to reflect the whole person. It can paint a distorted picture, especially since records are reductive—they often capture information in a standardized format with many details omitted.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 14:17:42 +0000
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