2 ms·

Can we have opt out for government agencies as well? I posted the other day that many county and state governments let you search their data bases for a wealth

• peatmoss 8y ago
  Many governments are providing access to the sort of data you link out of a desire / mandate for transparency. As an undergrad journalism major, one of our assignments was to dig up as much information as we could from public records about the school’s dean (he was a willing participant). The purpose of the exercise was to impress upon us how much information was available through public records. The difference now is that those records are digital and don’t require (in most cases) flipping through actual paper documents. The question of privacy vs. transparency is an active area of conversation now, particularly because people like yourself are discovering that you never had privacy around some transactions in the first place. Also, machine readability has changed the threat model somewhat. In general, however, I’d guess that transparency and open access to many kinds of data will continue to be the way the law leans.