California Gov. Halts Wage Info Sale

Uriel writes "CNN reports that Governor Davis of California has responded to the outrage about possible sales of wage information by ordering the Employment Development Department to take no action on the law permitting such. One for our side? "

Comments

Re:Some information doesn't need to be free

[dattaway]

I agree with this being private information; however, somehow, this is information that is going to be sold one way or another. If you never have ever checked your personal information on one of the databases like TRW or its distributers, I strongly recommend that you try. Four years ago, I found one had a trial account designed for employers to screen employees. It was a dialup and menu based on VT100. There were about 24 categories of information to select from about an applicant. I decided to see what information I could dig about myself and pulled up my credit history. It claimed it was just a demo and the information was not real. What surprised me was it was those numbers and companies matched my history. My driving record turned out correct too! All that was required at that time was a tax identification number and the name of the business.

I'm sure someone is going to find a way to get it and sell it if its not sold already. I could have just as easily found the goods on anyone else. Its there. Someone has it. After what I saw, I'm sure of it.

What is good public policy?

[Signal 11]

The reason is this is being retracted is because it is not "good public policy". There's two additional things to think about here. For one, people understand *exactly* what reselling of their personal information means. And for two, people don't like big government. This doesn't equal good public policy. But a related topic.. say, outlawing encryption, is considered "good public policy", because non-techies don't understand why encryption is so important - they don't *see* it being used.

But you'll notice that the same arguements are used: decrease fraud, and crime. For this, it's to ensure people don't write bad checks. For encryption, it's to stop "drug dealers" from encrypting all their communication. And drawing even more parallels - most people who write "bad checks" will just do so at the smaller stores that can't afford to pay somebody to research out every check they accept. Most drug dealers won't bother with encryption either - all they need is a pager.

End result of all this: You lose your rights. But we won't call it that - we'll say we're protecting you from the "criminal element". And if you still oppose us.. you're either a criminal, or you're soft on crime.

To be honest, unless that law gets repealed, they'll just wait a year.. and then more quietly start the program back up.



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Surprised for odd reasons

[RomulusNR]

I think lots of people here underestimate that there are politically motivated people who actually have concerns about personal liberties, privacy, and etc. The ones that we, even us "clever" computer enthuisasts, insist on giving all the attention to, are the mainstream politicians whose decisions come right from election polls and corporate pockets. Are these the ones that really deserve our attention?

What surprises me is that after years of being Pete Wilson's stronghold, California now has a liberal governor who actually seems to give a damn about the people in his state.

And on the other hand, I think lots of people here overestimate Slashdot. Suddenly every privacy matter is somehow a technology matter? And suddenly we're the only group of people that cares? And suddenly anyone listens to a bunch of computer people, especially when talking about something that really has nothing to do with computers?

Regards,