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Researchers Push For Access To Confidential Government Records of the Public
schwit1 writes: Researchers in a number of fields want access to the vast amount of private government data that is routinely gathered from the public. Nature reports: "In the past few years, administrative data have been used to investigate issues ranging from the side effects of vaccines to the lasting impact of a child's neighborhood on his or her ability to earn and prosper as an adult. Proponents say that these rich information sources could greatly improve how governments measure the effectiveness of social programs such as providing stipends to help families move to more resource-rich neighborhoods. But there is also concern that the rush to use this data could pose new threats to citizens' privacy. 'The types of protections that we're used to thinking about have been based on the twin pillars of anonymity and informed consent, and neither of those hold in this new world,' says Julia Lane, an economist at New York University. In 2013, for instance, researchers showed that they could uncover the identities of supposedly anonymous participants in a genetic study simply by cross-referencing their data with publicly available genealogical information."
Give the average citizens access to private data on the research personnel, corporations and governments in exchange for information about average citizens.
It has to work both ways or not at all.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
To see how this can become unstuck, see the disaster that is the UK care.data project, which TFA mentions.
Researchers in a number of fields want access to the vast amount of private government data that is routinely gathered from the public.
Of course... of course they do.
It's just clear on the order of crystal we can't trust them with it like we can the government.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
justice=mercy spiritual axiom unchallenged yet... support system growing? https://twitter.com/FactTank/status/645920994201366528/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw ... hang on to our hemispheres,, the zeus weapon is being fired off willy nilly by the last gasper self appointed wmd on credit zionic nazi psychopath genociders ... see you on the other side of 'it'....
Also, if you wish to stop this abuse do not provide your information to any one unless absolutely necessary. Always ask why one is requesting your data and don't be afraid not to provide it.
I'm actually less bothered by researchers getting access to data to answer specific questions than I am about the potential for data breaches.
Almost invariably, giving researchers access to administrative data means creating a copy of that data. While it may not be easy to obtain illegally in its original storage location, creating a copy of the data increases the potential for a breach by the mere fact that another copy exists. It's also easy to see how researchers might not safeguard the data to the extent that its original owner does.
I work at a university and do scientific research. Some of it involves running massive jobs on supercomputers. Access to those systems is tightly controlled, much more so than most other computing resources at the university, because it's been a frequent target of intruders. Within the past couple of weeks, I've gotten an email about phishing attacks specifically directed at getting passwords to those systems. Clearly the data on those machines is of value to criminals, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to obtain it. There are rules about how long data can be stored in what's essentially scratch space as well as prohibiting the storage of data protected by laws like HIPAA. I know for a fact that the rules about the use of scratch space as temporary storage are frequently broken by many users. I have no reason to trust that rules about what types of data can be stored on those systems are followed more frequently. Even if researchers aren't malicious, I generally believe that they are careless with data.
When these data are given to researchers, it's an inviting target for criminals. These are data breaches waiting to happen. Just say no to sharing administrative data with researchers.
M-I-Z
kU still sucks!
This happened years ago. Information that people were required to give for their car registrations was then sold to marketing firms, and the state in question simply insisted that it was THEIR data to use as they saw fit. Well, yes, it is their data, but it was gathered under requirement (because you can't drive a car without registering it), and was presumed to have some degree of "privilege" (in the attorney-client sense).
Our only hope is that even average non-tech people are waking up to the privacy issues as they encounter fraudulent credit card charges, and the inconvenience of changing their accounts, on a regular basis due to the various data breaches that make the news.