Clarify the Gap Between Public and Private Information

Many people today have credit cards, bank accounts, stocks, medical plans, dental plans, insurance etc. In obtaining for instance, a credit card, some companies may review a customer's personal information including name, date of birth, and social security number. So how do you feel knowing someone else has access to your information? Should agencies collect private information in the first place? What information should government and businesses have access to, if any? Should the government and everyone else, including friends and family have access to information you don't necessarily want them having? Today, a thin vague line exists between "public" and "private" information. Privacy is of great concern to many people. Not only do I want certain information kept private, but many others want theirs kept as well. Certain information is private, whereas other information is public. An extremely distinguishable line should exist between public and private information, but if such a line cannot exist then society should have at least something more concrete.

First off, one needs to have a better understanding of what privacy means to further understand the topic of discussion. Private information includes social security number, home address, home phone number, full name, date of birth, place of birth, files on someone's computer, and many other instances people should not have general access to. One can associate the word "private" with the word "secret." Privacy, therefore, will have the following definition: any information one doesn't want the rest of the world knowing about.

With the notion of privacy now established, when should private information become public? Certain situations do arise when governmental agencies in particular need access to individual's private information. In situations where people have committed crimes, depending on the severity of the crime, the FBI for instance, has access to some private information to assist their investigations. More importantly, the Patriot Act provides the government and several agencies with many different powers including the sharing of information [6]. The Patriot Act also allows the FBI to access private information by wiretaps and other methods without the consent of the individual [6]. Generally speaking, the FBI doesn't have malicious intentions of collecting an individual's private information and with technologies of today, including high-speed data lines; people can share and transmit personal information across these lines fairly easily [2]. The FBI and the government for instance, obtain private information through citizens filling out various forms including a tax form or a form for a loan. In rare cases, hackers can access personal information, with malicious intentions in mind including identity theft. One article noted, "Unfortunately, current information networks do not have adequate safeguards for the protection of sensitive information [4]," which means people's private information stored in databases remain at great risk from hackers tapping into such information.

The government should have a database containing criminals' information, as many police departments do. ThePatriot Act in particular empowers some agencies to have the ability to share and synchronize people's private information without their knowledge [6]. People, who commit crimes, should surrender some of their privacy by default. The information about criminals kept in the database should include the person's name, address, date of birth, social security number, the dates of crimes they've committed, and what they did. The information the government collects on a typical citizen should only include a few things - full name, social security number, date of birth, bank account information etc. However, the government should not keep information about one's most recent purchase or whom they voted for in the last election.

With the issue of privacy in mind, public information includes any information the government deems necessary to make public and any information the general people should have. However, people will always have differing opinions about public information and who should know what about them. Fortunately, the Privacy Act of 1974 does ensure people have certain private information kept private [5]. For example, agencies can't store more private information on a person than they need to do their job [5]. Also, individuals violating the Privacy Act will receive large fines of up to $5,000 [5]. Fining individuals does prevent some "bad" people from giving out one's personal information without their knowledge, thus preventing private information from becoming public.

People should have control over their information, except in criminal cases, and they should have the ability to say who has access to what, but most importantly, to say for how long. For example, JetBlue, an airline, violated its own privacy policy and gave out its passengers' information without their knowledge to a governmental related agency performing a study [1]. Therefore, Governmental agencies should have a setup where a person's private information would go into a database and expire after a certain amount of time; meaning private information should expire. Expiring information wouldn't necessarily solve problems with invasion of privacy, but may lessen the risk of individual's privacy. A person should have the option of keeping information about himself from inspection by the general public; assuming the purpose of doing so is not in the service of criminal acts [2].

The government and everyone else should have limited access to private information. One article explained a website tool: "P3P is a tool designed to inform users about the privacy practices of Web sites, so that they might decide whether or not to interact further with that site [3]," mentioning a rather interesting idea. Users of the Internet should have the ability to control which web sites collect their personal information. Filling out a form at a local doctor's office, however, may require providing private information one wouldn't want to become public. Once a business, governmental agency, or other entity collects a person's private information, just assume the information is not kept entirely private and can become public through various sharing of information. Society should clarify the gap between public and private information. People should know exactly what information the government retains, but more importantly why. As an individual, one should have sole power over their private information and should proceed with caution when giving out any information because agencies, businesses and the government can share collected private information. One should only give out private information on a "Need to know" basis. One solution to privacy includes anonymity, which allows people to retain their privacy and the government for example, allows some anonymity through voting.

Works Cited

[1] Associated Press. JetBlue Gives Away Data on Passengers. The Los Angeles Times. 2003. 1-2.

[2] Communications of the ACM. A Problem-List of Issues Concerning Computers and Public Policy. ACM Press. 1974. 495.

[3] Hochheiser, Harry. The Platform for Privacy Preference as a Social Protocol: An Examination within the U.S. Policy Context. ACM Press. Volume 2, Issue 4. November 2002. 276-306.

[4] Hoffman, Lance J. Computers and Privacy: A Survey. ACM Press. 1969. 85-103.

[5] The Privacy Act of 1974. Department of Justice. 1974.

[6] USA Patriot Act. Department of Justice.