The Desegregation of Privacy Issues: Closing the Privacy Gap?

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Opinion

The Desegregation of Privacy Issues: Closing the Privacy Gap?

10/11/2006

By Terry Calhoun

Was North Korea’s underground explosion even nuclear? If so, many experts are saying that it was either a partial success or a partial failure, in technical terms. Years ago, maybe even a few years ago, we’d have had North Korea’s claims as the sole data to analyze. Now, any size of underground shaking is identified and measured. Nowadays, however:

“It’s pretty remarkable that such a small explosion was promptly apparent on seismometers all over the world,” said Paul Richards, a seismologist at Columbia University‘s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY. “The detection of this was really good. You can’t hide these kinds of things, even very small tests.” (Full Article)

There are lots of things that “you can’t hide” anymore. Consumers have experienced this as many institutions, including colleges and universities, have leaked “personal data” in hundreds of reported instances. At Ohio University, such leaks have been a significant part of a crisis of reputation that has resulted in loss of institutional prestige and a number of firings. (Although two IT staffers have recently won grievances asserting they were unfairly fired and had nothing to do with the security issues.

Databases are leaking right and left because data isn’t useful unless we can connect it to other data. But connections leak. Contributing to the loss of personal privacy is the lack of systems thinking that extends outside of a single enterprise and, in more instances than it should d'esn’t even extend to the inside perimeter of institutions.

My family has experienced credit card “identity theft” several times. It’s a hassle, but nothing like the hassles experienced by friends who have had their “checkbook identity” stolen. To be frank, using “identity theft” to describe the loss or theft of important but small pieces of “identity” is probably a nomenclature mistake. The term should be restricted to instances where many parts of an identity are stolen and misrepresented.

We all know, now, to Google job applicants to determine the frankness and veracity of resume information, even to go into Facebook and MySpace and check out their representations there.