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We've
touched on these issues before, and I discussed them
in the
Golem article for the now sadly defunct Markup magazine
that
MIT published. The battle for privacy was lost the day
the
first Mosaic browser hit the net. The web was fielded
witlessly.
1. Most information one might want to declare private becomes
public
by multiple means. For example, you may think you
are
keeping a home address private but you applied for an
FCC
ham license without noticing that the FCC lets ham web sites
have
access to that information for their call sign databases.
With
that and a handy free web search map, bingo, directions
to
your front door. A simple name search is all one needs
even
if one has never used the web or gotten an email account.
Databases leak.
2. The problem is not simply privacy but aggregation (see
1) and
the
illusions of aggregation. If what is said about you and
not
what you say is the means by which you are classified
by a
search engine, you are the sum of the impressions
others
have, right, wrong, indifferent or malicious.
Gossip
kills reputations.
3. In
many cases, your governments are much more
tightly constrained over the information they collect
and
share. Dissemination management policies
are
legally instituted in all American states and
probably in Europe as well. There are also purge
statutes on the books that enforce removing information
from
these databases after a period of time or under
certain rules (eg, juvenile status). Law
enforcement
institutions are constrained as to information
they
can
share with one another. Yes, 911 resulted in
a
loosening of these controls, but failure to
coordinate
exposed the public to threat. Can the genie be
put
back
in the bottle? I doubt it, but by contrast,
the
web has none of this.
No
rules cuts equally.
The
web routes around restraints; even ones that
protect privacy, decency, and ethical use.
The
Web is not a democratizing institution in that
it
empowers without constraint. The problem is
not
what information is collected but the authority
and
abilities others have to use it without your
consent and without legal oversight.
Like
it or not, the damage to privacy that has most
affected the most people was done by the web
and
those who promoted a laissez faire technology
for
information publication and aggregation.
They
is Us.
len
[Andrew
said]
Perhaps, in a broader
context, an even more important aspect is the notion of eXtreme Monitoring
Language!
The article from TBL et al in Scientific American started
with an example where medical data which, in Europe at least, would be seen as
confidential information was passed around with what at least some would view
as gay abandon.
If machine processing of semantics is implemented we,
as individuals, are highly likely to lose control of the privacy of our
personal information if we cannot know or influence directly which parts of
personal information (and its meaning) is accessible to "Big
Brother".
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