Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Why should a person who has committed no crime be concerned about electronic infor-
mation gathering and data mining by government agencies?
These databases contain vast amounts of information on all of us, including very personal infor-
mation—our medical histories, financial transactions, what we purchase, and what we read. Under
our concept of privacy, people who have done nothing wrong should have every expectation that the
government is not viewing, collecting, or analyzing information about them. So asking “Why should I
worry if I have nothing to hide?” is the wrong formulation. The question should be “Since I have done
nothing wrong, why should the government be investigating me?”
The government can look at records that pertain to a suspected terrorist. Yet with data mining, the
government may have no articulable suspicion pointing at anyone, but simply mines personal data
from airlines, banks, and commercial entities to look at patterns of behavior that might indicate
someone may be a terrorist, is associated with a terrorist, knows a terrorist, or is engaged in a behavior
that may fit a pattern that the government thinks applies to terrorists. These types of data mining and
data analysis can result in significant false positives—innocent people get caught up in investigations—
and this can have consequences. First, just being investigated can be an intrusion into privacy. Second,
consequences flow from fitting a pattern—you may be denied the right to get on a plane or be passed
over for employment because you lived in an apartment building at the same time as a tenant with the
same name as a terrorist's.
Privacy advocates argue that the government needs to have an articulable reason to collect or analyze
personal information: the government should need a court order from a judge and should show why
they believe a data-mining project is likely to result in identifying suspected or potential terrorists. We
do need to realize the government has almost carte blanche to conduct these investigations because
they have significant authority under current law to engage in data-mining exercises. There are very few
privacy protections under the Constitution or statutes pertaining to these vast databases of personal
information. We need stronger privacy laws to deal with data mining.
