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May 22, 2006
Opinion: the costs of data mining
"Simson L. Garfinkel, an author and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for Research
on Computation and Society, looks beyond the existence of a government database of telephone
numbers to the potential for expanding the cache to include information from other sources. These
vast databases would 'require extensive protections to prevent abuse from low-level insiders and
senior government officials,' according to Garfinkel's op-ed in The Washington Post. Besides the
potential for eroding personal privacy, the costs of collecting, storing and analyzing this
information are expensive. The biggest concern that may arise after spending the money and time to
build these databases is avoiding the 'nagging feeling that you really should be putting it to
use,' Garfinkel writes."
Posted by Meredith Mazzotta at May 22, 2006 07:38 AM
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