[LINK] Technology that exposes your dirty linen

[Roger Clarke]

At 11:39 +1100 9/1/08, Tom Worthington wrote:
>Perhaps it has reached the point where the surveillance is so 
>widespread that there is not point trying to regulate it at source, 
>and it is the use to which the data is put which we need to 
>concentrate on.

I don't in the least accept the defeatism inherent in that.

But it reminded me of this proposal for data self-destruction:

Escaping the data panopticon: Prof says computers must learn to "forget"
By Nate Anderson | Published: May 09, 2007 - 08:52AM CT
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070509-escaping-the-data-panopticon-teaching-computers-to-forget.html

The rise of fast processors and cheap storage means that remembering, 
once incredibly difficult for humans, has become simple. Viktor 
Mayer-Schönberger, a professor in Harvard's JFK School of Government, 
argues that this shift has been bad for society, and he calls instead 
for a new era of "forgetfulness."

Mayer-Schönberger lays out his idea in a faculty research working 
paper called "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of 
Ubiquitous Computing," where he describes his plan as reinstating 
"the default of forgetting our societies have experienced for 
millennia."

Why would we want our machines to "forget"? Mayer-Schönberger 
suggests that we are creating a Benthamist panopticon by archiving so 
many bits of knowledge for so long. The accumulated weight of stored 
Google searches, thousands of family photographs, millions of books, 
credit bureau information, air travel reservations, massive 
government databases, archived e-mail, etc., can actually be a 
detriment to speech and action, he argues.

"If whatever we do can be held against us years later, if all our 
impulsive comments are preserved, they can easily be combined into a 
composite picture of ourselves," he writes in the paper. "Afraid how 
our words and actions may be perceived years later and taken out of 
context, the lack of forgetting may prompt us to speak less freely 
and openly."
In other words, it threatens to make us all politicians.

In contrast to omnibus data protection legislation, Mayer-Schönberger 
proposes a combination of law and software to ensure that most data 
is "forgotten" by default. A law would decree that "those who create 
software that collects and stores data build into their code not only 
the ability to forget with time, but make such forgetting the 
default." Essentially, this means that all collected data is tagged 
with a new piece of metadata that defines when the information should 
expire.

In practice, this would mean that iTunes could only store buying data 
for a limited time, a time defined by law. Should customers 
explicitly want this time extended, that would be fine, but people 
must be given a choice. Even data created by users-digital pictures, 
for example-would be tagged by the cameras that create them to expire 
in a year or two; pictures that people want to keep could simply be 
given a date 10,000 years in the future.

Mayer-Schönberger wants to help us avoid becoming digital pack rats, 
and he wants to curtail the amount of time that companies and 
governments can collate data about users and citizens "just because 
they can." Whenever there's a real need to do so, data can be 
retained, but setting the default expiration date forces 
organizations to decide if they truly do need to retain that much 
data forever.

It's a "modest" proposal, according to Mayer-Schönberger, but he 
recognizes that others may see it as "simplistic" or "radical." To 
those who feel like they are living in a panopticon, it might feel 
more like a chink in the wall through which fresh air blows.


-- 
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