>> it's always fair to be more skeptical of government access to data given the government's... I'm not willing to take accept this as an absolute regardless o

>> it's always fair to be more skeptical of government access to data given the government's... I'm not willing to take accept this as an absolute regardless of context. You could also make the case that government is accountable, given democracy, some level of transparency, oversight etc. There are quite a few private actors with the ability to correlate, deanonymize, etc. If a dataset is commercially available, it isn't private. Maybe it should not exist as a public dataset at all. If someone has to prove that a dataset does not pose a privacy risk, it should be whoever is selling it... or anyone who touches it. The idea that google, pfifer & citibank can access a dataset... without oversight or accountability, but a public health agency can't because privacy... it seems ridiculous to me.