From the
BBC - Internet law professor Michael Geist wonders whether technology threatens the legal foundations of privacy law.:
Privacy and data protection laws have long relied on the twin pillars of notice and consent whereby consumers are notified of, and consent to, the collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information.
Critics argue that both notice and consent are today little more than legal fictions, as consumers ignore overly complex notices and shrinking technology makes it virtually impossible to obtain informed consumer consent.
Moreover, privacy law has also emphasised the distinction between personally identifiable information - information that can be traced to a particular person and is therefore deserving of legal protection - and non-identifiable information that does not enjoy any legal protection.
Technology threatens the ability to easily distinguish between the two as powerful computers and ever-expanding databases make it easier to identify individuals from what was once thought to be non-identifiable information.
Tip of hat to
Nick Carr for this link...he comments that:
This is what makes most of the "privacy protection" measures routinely rolled out by the internet giants little more than PR fluff. Even as they play up various techniques for "anonymizing" personal data, they are perfecting data-mining algorithms designed to see through anonymous information, to connect the dots back to you. Given enough data, enough computing power, and enough smart programmers, the term "non-identifiable information" becomes an oxymoron.
We felt 2007 would be the year Privacy became an issue...but having been in about 4 conferences in 3 weeks (ferocious, man!) and taking the temperature, I'd say that although many now mention privacy as an aim, the itching tendency to strip-datamine is still there, and unless we are very vigilant, it will happen without us realising it.
One of our frustrations is every time we look at how "anonymiser" technology may work to negate this you come up against anti crime, anti money laundering or anti-terrorism interests.
