Data Freedom versus Privacy – the great conundrum

Monday, June 15, 2009

By Bear

With Sir Tim Berners-Lee taking on an advisory role to the UK government on how data can be freed up into the public domain, the idea of freeing data has come up for discussion again. It is generally agreed by most non-totalitarians that making government data public is a good thing; we don’t want our governments to hide more than they have to behind a wall of privacy. However, in freeing data, the matter of ownership cannot be over looked. Freeing Data sounds wonderful when it is data that is nothing to do with yourself, but becomes a different matter when you are involved or are within that data to some extent.

The problem is that we have never defined clearly the whole idea of Privacy – at least not in terms of how that relates to the Internet. Without stating the complete obvious, the Internet is completely different to all previous forms of data communication: unlike phone, mails, fax and so on, the world wide web in order to COMMUNICATE data has to STORE data, or more accurately copy, store and relay the information. Of course, I suppose this makes in intrinsically very inefficient (which it is). But more importantly, if you wish to use the Internet, you have to be prepared to give personal information away to people with whom you have no contract.

To be clearer: If you used an old fashioned telephone in the UK, you had a contract with the General Post Office to supply a physical line and the telephone on the end of it. Your dealings with them were direct and confidential. When you made a phone call, you were physically connected to the recipient mechanically. The only data recorded was the distance of the connection and time taken, and that was only recorded by the company with which you had voluntarily and legally contracted with. It was not possible to store the information withing that transaction without intentionally tapping into it and attaching a tape recorder; in other words, monitoring and taping were not part of the communication requirement.

With the Web, you have a contract with your ISP, but once the data leaves their network, it is in territory completely outside your control. The data is stored physically on data storage devices around the world as connections are made and a copy of your data (not the original) is passed onto to other copying and storage devices till it is eventually delivered to its final destination – where it is stored, if course. Hopefully the various copies of the data created in the process are then deleted – but you have no control over that what so ever. It is a trust issue.

This type of data communication, where to be transmitted the data is stored and copied, is now affecting more and more communication types, including the telephone. As a user, you have to basically wave all your privacy rights, or at least control over your privacy, or not use the systems at all – there is no automatic middle ground. When you set up an email account, or connect to another person via the Web in some fashion, the default settings are to allow all the world to be able to view that data. Encryption is an opt-in service, not ah opt-out service , and therefore is not used by the vast majority of persons on the web. And if you do want to use it, for emails for instance, the other party needs to be using an email client capable of copying with the encryption.

So, our privacy is not defined, and our control over our data cannot, technically, be assured. We now have this mad situation where governments (theoretically our servants) demand the right to collect our data beyond the control of our privacy. In return, mindful of the goals of freedom of information, we demand the right to expose that data to the public. So not only have we no control of our data, but we are complicit in exposing that data, or at least the effects of our private existence to the general public. Now, obviously, there is in most of this the safety of anonymity. But remember that us being anonymous is not something automatic or implicit in the existence of the data or the processing of that data, but something intentional that has to be written in.

One way or another, we are throwing away the idea of a private existence. So much so that to attempt to have one is questioned and seen as suspicious not just by the authorities but by society as a whole. To be private, the best thing is for your family to live a hermit-like existence, self sufficient, without any form of modern, storable communication, using cash transactions, home education … you get the picture. But even then, a government employee will come and ask you to register your hermit cave and family, because “this is important for the government to know.”

The problem with “freeing data” is a matter of ownership. It sounds wonderful when it is data that is nothing to do with yourself, but becomes a different matter when you are involved or are within that data to some extent.

The problem is that we have never defined clearly the whole idea of Privacy – at least not in terms of how that relates to the internet. Without stating the complete obvious, the internet is completely different to all previous forms of data communication: unlike phone, mails, fax and so on, the world wide web in order to COMMUNICATE data has to STORE data.

Of course, I suppose this makes in intrinsically very inefficient (which it is). But more importantly, if you wish to use the internet, you have to be prepared to give personal information away to people with whom you have no contract.

To be clearer:

If you use and old fashioned telephone in the UK, you had a contract with the General Post Office to supply a physical line and the telephone on the end of it. Your dealings with them were direct and confidential. When you made a phone call, you were physically connected to the recipient mechanically, and it was not possible to store that transaction. The only data recorded was the distance of the connection and time taken, and that was only connected by the company with which you had voluntarily contracted with.

With the Web, you have a contract with your ISP, but once the data leaves their network, it is in territory completely outside your control. The data is stored physically on data storage devices around the world as connections are made and a copy of your data (not the original) is eventually delivered. Hopefully the various copies of the data created in the process are then deleted – but you have no control over that what so ever. It is a trust issue.

This type of data communication, where to be transmitted the data is stored and copied, is now affecting more and more communication types, including the telephone.

As a user, you have to basically wave all your privacy rights, or at least control over your privacy, or not use the systems at all.

So, our privacy is not defined, and our control over our data cannot, technically, be assured.

We now have this mad situation where governments (theoretically our servants) demand the right to collect our data beyond the control of our privacy.

In return, with freedom of information, we demand the right to expose that data to the public.

So not only have we no control of our data, but we are complicit in exposing that data, or at least the effects of our private existence to the general public.

Now, obviously, there is in most of this the safety of anonymity. But remember that us being anonymous is not something automatic or implicit in the data processing, but something intentional that has to be written in.

But even then, a government employee will come and ask you to register your hermit cave and family, because “this is important for the government to know.”

Face it, to be allowed to breath you have to furst wave away the vast majority of your rights.

Tags: freedom, internet, pricay, time berners-lee, web

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 11:09 am and is filed under Other Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Data Freedom versus Privacy – the great conundrum