21 ms·

As Data Collecting Grows, Privacy Erodes

18 points by peter123 18y ago

tokenadult 18y ago
"The way Mr. Rodriguez’s positive steroid test result became public followed a path increasingly common in the computer age: third-party data collection. We are typically told that personal information is anonymously tracked for one reason -- usually something abstract like making search results more accurate, recommending book titles or speeding traffic through the toll booths on the thruways. But it is then quickly converted into something traceable to an individual, and potentially life-changing." That's troubling even for someone who is not an A-list celebrity like A-Rod.
- akd 18y ago
  If it troubles you, it's still very easy to avoid being surveilled by most of these systems. Pay cash instead of using a credit card. Don't use EZ-Pass. Turn off your phone when you're not using it. Yes, it is inconvenient, but trading privacy for convenience means you don't value it very much. People got along fine before EZ-Pass came along. Until we have mandatory legislated tracking devices in cars, etc. (not a far-fetched idea at all, and something that must be fought), you are largely the keeper of your own privacy.
  - Harkins 18y ago
    In Illinois, you pay twice as much for tolls without EZ-Pass; a literal cost of privacy. And it's getting significantly harder to avoid these kinds of surveillance. You forgot to mention: never have a utility bill, or a mortgage, or a car... "Do it yourself" is no longer an effective option.
aneesh 18y ago
Most of us recognize the value of having such detailed data, and also the consequences of it (like in this article). I would prefer not to have to "trust" the company storing the data, and I think leaks like this make it clear this can't be the approach in the future. So how can this problem be solved from a technology perspective? I'm aware of k-anonymization, where you change the data to make it mathematically impossible to identify an individual data point more specifically than among k entries. So for example Age Weight Disease 18 150 Cancer 45 203 Diabetes 37 197 Heart Disease becomes Age Weight Disease * * Cancer [36-45] [195-210] Diabetes [36-45] [195-210] Heart Disease for k=2, and it's now impossible to know for sure the disease of the 45-year-old, whereas you could deduce that information from the earlier records. Another approach, used by some major search engines for ad-targeting, is to insert random noise into the data. What other solutions are there? If you build software that captures sensitive data, how do you deal with it?
- pierrefar 18y ago
  One set of data is not the issue. It's when you start compiling knowledge (I almost want to say "evidence") from multiple data sets that privacy is really invaded. Couple your anonymous dataset with the search histories of the people involved, and you'll likely get your answer. Or couple it to their travel info to see which hospital are they likely to have visited so regularly - does the hospital have a specialist diabetes or heart disease unit?
aneesh 18y ago
I remember a research talk where the speaker said that, empirically, there are 3 reasons consumers give up their privacy: convenience, (the perception of) security, and money.

18 points by peter123 18y ago

"The way Mr. Rodriguez’s positive steroid test result became public followed a path increasingly common in the computer age: third-party data collection. We are typically told that personal information is anonymously tracked for one reason -- usually something abstract like making search results more accurate, recommending book titles or speeding traffic through the toll booths on the thruways. But it is then quickly converted into something traceable to an individual, and potentially life-changing." That's troubling even for someone who is not an A-list celebrity like A-Rod.

akd 18y ago
If it troubles you, it's still very easy to avoid being surveilled by most of these systems. Pay cash instead of using a credit card. Don't use EZ-Pass. Turn off your phone when you're not using it. Yes, it is inconvenient, but trading privacy for convenience means you don't value it very much. People got along fine before EZ-Pass came along. Until we have mandatory legislated tracking devices in cars, etc. (not a far-fetched idea at all, and something that must be fought), you are largely the keeper of your own privacy.
- Harkins 18y ago
  In Illinois, you pay twice as much for tolls without EZ-Pass; a literal cost of privacy. And it's getting significantly harder to avoid these kinds of surveillance. You forgot to mention: never have a utility bill, or a mortgage, or a car... "Do it yourself" is no longer an effective option.

aneesh 18y ago

Most of us recognize the value of having such detailed data, and also the consequences of it (like in this article). I would prefer not to have to "trust" the company storing the data, and I think leaks like this make it clear this can't be the approach in the future. So how can this problem be solved from a technology perspective? I'm aware of k-anonymization, where you change the data to make it mathematically impossible to identify an individual data point more specifically than among k entries. So for example Age Weight Disease 18 150 Cancer 45 203 Diabetes 37 197 Heart Disease becomes Age Weight Disease * * Cancer [36-45] [195-210] Diabetes [36-45] [195-210] Heart Disease for k=2, and it's now impossible to know for sure the disease of the 45-year-old, whereas you could deduce that information from the earlier records. Another approach, used by some major search engines for ad-targeting, is to insert random noise into the data. What other solutions are there? If you build software that captures sensitive data, how do you deal with it?

pierrefar 18y ago
One set of data is not the issue. It's when you start compiling knowledge (I almost want to say "evidence") from multiple data sets that privacy is really invaded. Couple your anonymous dataset with the search histories of the people involved, and you'll likely get your answer. Or couple it to their travel info to see which hospital are they likely to have visited so regularly - does the hospital have a specialist diabetes or heart disease unit?

aneesh 18y ago

I remember a research talk where the speaker said that, empirically, there are 3 reasons consumers give up their privacy: convenience, (the perception of) security, and money.