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When I was at college a friend of mine was being accused of a heinous crime. In the end, he used key card time slots to prove he was innocent. But even with the

When I was at college a friend of mine was being accused of a heinous crime. In the end, he used key card time slots to prove he was innocent. But even with the key card it was a matter of the incident happening like a single minute after he was there. Luckily, all of the key swipes were stored and it showed that shortly after he had already swiped his card etc. Anyways, long story short, it doesn't hurt to keep that kind of data especially on a college campus.

semperfaux 12y ago
It didn't hurt in that particular instance, and that does not mean it couldn't have been turned on him if one of the readers had failed to record (or for any other reason gave ambiguity to his motions) and placed him incorrectly where the crime took place, nor that the practice is inherently good because it exonerated one person. Any more than potentially proving that you weren't at another crime scene makes storing all of your cell phone metadata inherently OK. Yes, they have this potential benefit, but no, they should not be reviewed solely in that context.
ant6n 12y ago
Who says he didn't give his card to somebody else to create an alibi?
gwern 12y ago
Your friend would have been saved with even an aggressive retention policy, from the sound of it. Heinous crimes usually don't take years to pop up.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Jimmy Saville. Harold Shipman. Etc etc.
  - colinb 12y ago
    I'll agree that the crimes committed by these individuals took a long time to come to light, but I don't see that either had any relevance to the discussion about retention of data that could be used to track their movements. Saville didn't escape discovery because there was no proof of his movements. He escaped because those who were harmed by him were cowed into silence, or ignored by those whose job it was to help. As for Shipman, wasn't it precisely because of anomalies in data collected about him that he was caught? And do you agree that collecting clinical data about doctor's use of drugs, and their outcomes vs. statistical norms might be reasonably exempted from the kind of personal data logging that many people find objectionable [me!]
IkmoIkmo 12y ago
If I tracked 100% of people's activity, professional, sexual, recreational, intellectual, physical, I'm sure an anecdote would arise where someone didn't go to jail because we all had this information to prove he was innocent. I hope you're seeing how this isn't very relevant however to the question whether we want this kind of monitoring. I also don't see how your anecdote in any way is a long story for 'it doesn't hurt to keep that kind of data'. It's a story for how 'it can be helpful to keep that data as shown by one particular anecdote'. That's not really the point, I think we all agree we could find a useful application with data, the point is that we may not want these things to be monitored for opposite reasons.

semperfaux 12y ago

It didn't hurt in that particular instance, and that does not mean it couldn't have been turned on him if one of the readers had failed to record (or for any other reason gave ambiguity to his motions) and placed him incorrectly where the crime took place, nor that the practice is inherently good because it exonerated one person. Any more than potentially proving that you weren't at another crime scene makes storing all of your cell phone metadata inherently OK. Yes, they have this potential benefit, but no, they should not be reviewed solely in that context.

ant6n 12y ago

Who says he didn't give his card to somebody else to create an alibi?

gwern 12y ago

Your friend would have been saved with even an aggressive retention policy, from the sound of it. Heinous crimes usually don't take years to pop up.

DanBC 12y ago
Jimmy Saville. Harold Shipman. Etc etc.
- colinb 12y ago
  I'll agree that the crimes committed by these individuals took a long time to come to light, but I don't see that either had any relevance to the discussion about retention of data that could be used to track their movements. Saville didn't escape discovery because there was no proof of his movements. He escaped because those who were harmed by him were cowed into silence, or ignored by those whose job it was to help. As for Shipman, wasn't it precisely because of anomalies in data collected about him that he was caught? And do you agree that collecting clinical data about doctor's use of drugs, and their outcomes vs. statistical norms might be reasonably exempted from the kind of personal data logging that many people find objectionable [me!]

IkmoIkmo 12y ago

If I tracked 100% of people's activity, professional, sexual, recreational, intellectual, physical, I'm sure an anecdote would arise where someone didn't go to jail because we all had this information to prove he was innocent. I hope you're seeing how this isn't very relevant however to the question whether we want this kind of monitoring. I also don't see how your anecdote in any way is a long story for 'it doesn't hurt to keep that kind of data'. It's a story for how 'it can be helpful to keep that data as shown by one particular anecdote'. That's not really the point, I think we all agree we could find a useful application with data, the point is that we may not want these things to be monitored for opposite reasons.