When quantitative privacy becomes qualitative privacy (was: Re: [LINK] Surveillance in extremis)

[Jan Whitaker]

At 01:20 PM 29/08/2006, Brendan Scott wrote:
>I think it is more than that.  It is the fact that it is easier both to 
>collect and to do something with the information.  Without making a 
>judgment myself, I think it is legitimate for someone to think that 
>ticking off house numbers on a piece of paper is less privacy invasive 
>than an automated RFID system, simply because it is easier to make use of 
>the information in a privacy invasive way.  While the ticks can be 
>converted into the same thing as an RFID scan, it requires additional 
>effort to so condition the data.

Hi, Brendan. That thought about the power of technology enablement went 
through my mind as well when I answered, but I set it aside in this case 
because the comparison was to bar-codes, which is a similar scanning type 
technology to rfid and could be used in the same way in the bin application 
as rfid. That is why I focussed on the backend systems rather than the 
tracking methodology at the point of collection. They are somewhat 
equivalent (I think) in their 'power' and invasiveness. BUT comparing a 
barcode/rfid identifier or painted numbers on the bin with a tv camera 
capturing the match or nothing shows the relative power of the approaches. 
That's like comparing erecords to paper records stored at the end of the 
hospital bed to paper records in a file cabinet. Difficulty of access, 
transparency of handling, and movement of the information is quite 
different between these three.

Jan


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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