An Epidemic of Snooping

Travoltus writes "Privacy advocates are frequently confronted with the rhetorical question, 'If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have a good reason to worry about losing your privacy, right?' This AP story uncovers a vast, distributed, decentralized epidemic of snooping into databases of personal information by workers at major utilities, the IRS, and other large organizations. In a number of cases these incidents have led to real harm. One striking example involves now ex-Mayor of Milwaukee Marvin Pratt, who had a pattern of being late paying his heating bills. This fact was leaked to the media by a utility worker and may have led to Pratt's losing a bid for re-election. As one can imagine, the harm becomes much greater when this same snooping is done by Government officials to deal with political enemies, or by corporations to uncover whistleblowers."

Comments

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have anything to hide! I live at #4-1131 burnaby st in vancouver, I own 3 macintosh computers... Based on your address (gay section of Vancouver) and your ownership of more than one Mac, I take it the fact that you're a homosexual isn't something you care to hide.

now look what you've done....

[Chrisq]

These are slashdot posters. You will probably come back to find that Kim has been shut in the utility room and the cat has been raped.

Re:Q&A

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone forgot the logical extension to that status that may be worth hiding: HIV positive but currently symptomatic (HAART regimen costing >$50,000K/annum). Stay tuned for mutations and 'weight loss'.

To know a person is to know the contents of their medicine cabinet.

Moderation is used by those who can't handle the truth.