just an asterisk

I recently read an interesting article in the MIT Technology review about data privacy and I found myself wondering if all of these data privacy hubbub really came down to just finding a secure way to share our personal data. Duh! – you’re probably saying, but hear me out. This doesn’t have to be so simple. In fact, in my geeky opinion, there is a very large opportunity for an organization to capitalize on the use of biometrics to provide a true and unbreakable method of identification. You may balk at this – most people dislike being presented with this answer. And yet at the same time, we hand out Social Security numbers as if they were candy, allowing even the guy at the cell phone store the key to the intimate details of our personal lives. Privacy advocates may ask “who watches the watchmen?” but to these naysayers, I argue that this situation is getting out of hand. It’s time for someone to fix the risk to our privacy – our futures depend on it.
When I check into a hotel in a foreign country, I am asked for a photocopy of my passport. The information and my passport could easily be used for a variety of scams, and to be honest, stealing my identity is just the least of the possibilities. With a copy of my passport in hand, nearly anyone could provide the required information for my credit cards or my banking. What if the government was allowed a simple method of checking my identity against some external database? I imagine that this would involve someone scanning a fingerprint, or reading some other measurement of my body, something that could not possibly under any circumstances be replicated. Is this so farfetched? We so often worry about government agencies knowing more than they should. However, we have no trouble using the one most important number assigned to us at birth, our SSN, for the most insignificant of purchases. I believe, at the end of the day we have to decide who we want to trust: will it be the gentleman at the cell phone store? Or the concierge at the front desk of the hotel? Or will I put my trust in my government, allowing them to be the stewards of my personal data?
There is an alternative to these obviously flawed possibilities, if we don’t trust the agents of our government (or our hotel) to bear the enormous burden of our personal privacy. We could, and this is going to sound a bit “American”, trust in capitalism to provide the answer. We could attempt to accept that a company run for the purpose of profit, would be in a better position to keep our data private than to allow it to fall in the wrong hands. A company interested in protecting our personal data, founded on the principle of deriving profits from doing this job well, would forever act in its own best interest-protecting our privacy simply because there is more profit in being successful than in any other outcome.
That said, humans are fallible and weak. Everyone has a price, as the old mafia movies tell us. So the trick will be not to offer any more profitable an alternative. And that, dear reader is the part left to play for the government (if I were allowed to deal out the roles). The government could ensure that no alternative means of profit exists for these organizations that bear such a large burden of responsibility. This is the role, but obviously, the details will be complicated. It’s a question of pursuing the right course of action and the current direction is, not to put too fine a point on it, rather scary.
Now I’m not an economist, and I’m sure that there are enormous holes in my suggestions, but I don’t think that that makes the argument worthless – we have to start looking for a way to make people feel safe. Data privacy concerns, without useful solutions, are just ways for credit card companies to sell solutions (credit protection plans, credit score monitors, etc). The real objective should be to eliminate these concerns through the natural and undeniable things that make us unique as humans. Fingerprints, the ridges of our ears, and retinal scans may seem like futuristic and perhaps unnecessary precautions. However, in the end we’re looking for that which makes us unique and these are the tools that whatever creator you believe in provided.
Here is what I would like to see: I would appreciate a frank and open discussion on the possible solutions. I want to know that my data is safe and that any company providing this service is making truckloads of money. Finally, I want us to stop the fear mongering. Identity theft should be impossible – now make it so.
~ab

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under future post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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