Selling Other People's Identities

joeflies writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has an extensive article on the controversial site Jigsaw, which makes it easy to sell other people's identity information. Jigsaw encourages people to collect business cards and email signature blocks, which is compiled together into a searchable database. Participants earn points towards their own searches or earn money. Is this exactly what Scott McNealy meant when he said electronic privacy is dead?"

Comments

Probably would be illegal in the UK

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Quite a few times I've thought, wouldn't it be nice if America had the same data privacy laws... this is a good example of why they're needed.

In the UK a database of personally-identifiable information automatically needs permission from every single individual concerned, unless it's exempt for some reason. Even if it is exempt the data can only be kept for the purpose it was collected for, and not shared. Once it's no longer needed it has to be destroyed.

It's a good example of putting individual rights before business interests. Not something the USA excels at...