[LINK] Re: RFID in Govt, and in People

[Roger Clarke]

At 9:23 +1000 5/10/06, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
>Roger, could perhaps comment on how well informed Local Councils are 
>on Privacy. Many borrowers are children and it is not usually a 
>Librarian doing the data collection.

Generally Councils are very poorly informed about privacy matters.

Even in States and Territories where they are subject to an explicit 
privacy statute (e.g. NSW, Vic), many don't even seem to realise it.

There are disappointingly few scandals in the media.  One in SA a 
while back was informative.

Librarians, OTOH, are generally well-informed and concerned, and 
resistant to privacy-invasive measures.

This issue is an overlap between privacy and freedom of thought / 
freedom of access to information.

Specifically, governments have had no access to data in the past 
about what people were reading, and that's a vital element of a free 
society.  A scheme that intentionally, or, rather more likely, 
accidentally, made it possible for individuals' reading to be 
monitored or re-constructed, would be a serious blow against freedom. 
Downright Soviet social control in fact.

-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW