[240] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Benefits and Risks in Google's Public Records
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Tue May 1 15:07:00 2007
Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 11:07:18 -0700 (PDT)
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Benefits and Risks in Google's Public Records Access Project
( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000228.html )
Greetings. I'd like to expand a bit on the issue of the shifting
legal landscape for search engines. This story:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/04/29/google.records.ap/index.html
discusses how Google is working with states and other governmental
entities to improve public records database access. This could
provide some real benefits by enabling typical Google high-quality
access to this important and useful data, but could also easily open
up a new Pandora's Box of major privacy and related risks.
To the extent that such databases become more easily searchable and
integrated with Google's core database, there may unfortunately be a
qualitative change in the potential for bad actors to take advantage
of the system.
For example, right now, a search for "David J. Farber" on Google
will of course find lots of material, mostly related to this
person's professional writings and activities. Integration into
Google of major public records databases means that much more
potentially intrusive and abusable information -- real estate
records are full of this stuff -- would be as easily found, either
when targeting individuals or searching for broader classes of
"targets" based on particular criteria (age, health, address, etc.)
True, the data is coming from state, federal, or local databases
which already contain the information, but the very awkwardness of
accessing these systems -- in comparison to the ease of using Google
- -- creates something of a crude firewall against at least some
casual and largescale abuses, without depending solely on the
quality of "sensitive information" redactions by the source agencies.
I believe that it would be extremely useful for Google to consider
the implementation of additional privacy protocols particularly
aimed at lowering this risk potential with public record data. A
hands-off approach (treating all data equally) is unlikely to
provide long-term legal protection to Google or other search
engines, since it seems increasingly probable that courts will
ultimately find that entities who organize data in ways that lead
(however unintentionally) to abuses may share responsibility and
liability for those abuses along with the data source providers.
I've seen significant public-records data nightmares even with the
existing crude database access systems. Individuals and
organizations can be and are hurt by abuse of such data. As I noted
above, a high-quality Google interface to this data will bring both
broad global benefits and a wide range of serious new risks on a much
larger scale, that could have major public policy and privacy
ramifications in a number of key areas.
It appears inevitable that courts and Congress will at some point
start clamping down on "enabling technologies" -- like search
engines -- which judges and legislators will view as being directly
involved in copyright and other data access related abuses, since
these services act as "middlemen" by organizing the data in ways
that so vastly increases the ease of access.
I doubt that the sort of "safe harbor" provisions as in the DMCA
today will last indefinitely without significant modifications that
would likely mean new liabilities for Google and others, unless
proactive steps are taken by these firms to try balance out some of
these benefits/risks factors. I do believe that such proactive steps
are technically and reasonably possible.
To not take such corrective actions risks draconian legislation and
court decisions that could have drastic negative impacts on search
engines' income and operations, and dramatically reduce the
usefulness of these services to the world's users.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
- International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Founder, CIFIP
- California Initiative For Internet Privacy - http://www.cifip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com
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