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Databases and Privacy

Posted by michael on from the bonfire-of-the-privacies dept.

A couple of stories made an interesting juxtaposition today. First read this story about information marketers scouring public records to compile personal information. Note the emphasis on cross-linking data from various sources to provide more information than any one source did - databases are synergistic. Now read this column about David Nelson, and its follow-up.

7 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Good thing databases are perfect! by plopez · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seriously, I spend a large amount of my time working with gov't. and private databases and info sources. Reconciling different views of the universe is nearly impossible. WHen I read about people cross referencing databases the amount of checking, QA and scrubbing required to have any confidence in the results iis horrendous.

    Example: person A gives you a download from thier database into a SS, person B (who may actually work for the same agency or company) supposedly gives you the same information but the 2 version do not match.

    And this is assuming that there are other areas where they may or may not be in alignment (e.g. abbreviations, type of info gathered, spelling variations etc.).

    Now take the combinatorics of tens of thousands of gov't and private DB's, and you will understand that:
    1) A good clean DB is horrendously expensive.
    2) Driven by the profit motive, most compaies are unwilling to take the time and spend the money to properly QA and scrub thier data.
    3) Much of the cross matching is therefore useless due to noise.
    4) TIA is totally bogus. See above.
    5) Having some anonymous DB of information tracking your life is very scary.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  2. DMV by RightInTheNeck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It was just last year that myself and the other people of Missouri were shocked to find out that the local DMV was selling our personal information to the private sector. Unbelievable, a state goverment run institution that essential everyone who wants to drive and own a car has to deal with. Thats what I call being forced to opt-in.

  3. David Brin had it right by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In Transparent Society, he said we can't keep that privacy, like you say, it's long gone from the barn. But trying to restrict who gets to see it is also a long gone horse. The rich and powerful will always have access, legally and openly or otherwise.

    Best to let EVERYBODY look at ALL info. Right now, the rich and powerful can look at everybody's info, but (1) we don't know it, and (2) we can't look at theirs.

    I'd rather be able to look at everybody's info, including the rich and powerful, even at the tradeoff of knowing that my neighbors are looking at mine.

    The problem isn't that the info is available. The problem is that it is only available to the rich and powerful.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  4. I just called... by Barkmullz · · Score: 5, Funny

    But he does say that people who want to see if their name is on either list or who want to make a complaint, can call the agency's contact center at 866-289-9673 or send an e-mail to TellTSA@tsa.dot.gov.

    - "Hi, my name is Rob Malda, am I on the list?"

    - "You are now." [click]

    --
    Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
  5. I work for a "Risk Management" company.. by booms · · Score: 5, Informative

    And honestly, you'd be surprised how many privacy laws we have to follow (which is a good thing). For instance, we only sell accounts to people who have a legitimate purpose for searching information (such as insurance companies when you apply for insurance, law enforcement agencies to track down criminals, collection agencies who are trying to track down people who skip payments, etc.). If I were to search for information about someone besides myself or others in the development team whom have agreed to let me search their names, even when testing, I'd be fired within the hour. We have a compliance department who keeps track of all searches, has to report them to various authorities, etc. If someone searches for someone marked as a celerbrity, their account is shut down within minutes and one of our compliance people is on the phone getting documentation about why they searched for that name. In fact, the applications to get to the data we sell are quite nasty, and we only have a very narrow scope of people that we can sell data to.

    I think in general, personal data is protected more than you would think (at least public records, credit agency data, etc)-- I really have no idea how these 'unscruplous' companies get by with public data without having anyone come down on them. I'm a privacy & security advocate, and I don't feel what I do crosses my moral boundries (at least at this point).

    1. Re:I work for a "Risk Management" company.. by TrackDaddy · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Not to offend, but... GIVE ME A FSCKING BREAK

      Now, lets talk about how it works in the real world. I wanted a copy of my credit report, so I tried using www.freecreditreport.com (it's not really free, but hey, good marketing). When I submitted my request and tried to set up my account, I was given an error that my password was incorrect. Now, never having set up an account, I thought "hey, this is odd". So I called their 800 number and promptly found out that I did indeed have an account. After about 5 minutes of social engineering, I had the e-mail address that was associated with "my" account. Low and behold, it belonged to a guy that had received a copy of my rental application (yes it is legal for him to get a credit report, but not by impersonating me).

      So, I said to the helpful young man on the phone "you've given my information to someone impersonating me". His response, and that of his supervisor was to tell me I should go file a police report. When I asked if they would take any action, the answer was a very resounding "NO".

      So, I called back a few minutes later, with my new-found e-mail address and talked to another helpful gentleman whom I convinced to change the password and e-mail address on the account so that the previous dirt-bag would be locked out.

      That is how things work in the real world. The companies who compile/manage/sell this information do not give a flying-frig about access control as long as money changes hands along with the data. If someone wants your info, and they have your name and a few other facts... they can get all the juicy stuff w/in about half an hour. Your only protection is the sheer volume of bio-mass that makes up the target group.

      --
      Run! There's a lobster loose!
  6. Re:Random Lies by Cygnusx12 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Anyone else? I Lie. Sometimes I'm a yak herder with a yearly income of ~$6000, other times I'm a "Decision Maker" with a yearly income of $800k+.

    As someone who used to work in database aggregation with this sort of data. I can tell you that we corrollated income as a function of your home value. (Which is freely available right down at your local county court house in most states).

    You typically don't have 800k/yr decision makers living in 12k/yr apartments. There's a process in compilation here, they don't just enter this into a database and sell it.