1996-02-05 - Re: Fair Credit Reporting Act and Privacy Act

Header Data

From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
To: Frank Willoughby <cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 2f303fc7ae7c5c37d8cce36c2574dfe8e95c51b80d4c468a9e850a79f6abee93
Message ID: <2.2.32.19960205200507.006fa0ac@panix.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1996-02-05 21:55:35 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 05:55:35 +0800

Raw message

From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 05:55:35 +0800
To: Frank Willoughby <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Fair Credit Reporting Act and Privacy Act
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960205200507.006fa0ac@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 08:25 AM 2/5/96 -0500, Frank Willoughby wrote:

>If the Privacy Act were rewritten to be as strict as the BDSG, businesses
>would have a (mandatory) legal requirement to:
>
>o Ensure that personal data is stored properly (by encrypting it, etc)
>o Ensure that personal data is not distributed
>o Ensure that databases are *not* being maintained which describe the
>   characteristics of individuals (buying habits, income, property 
>   ownership, etc) wantonly propagated by marketing (direct mail, 
>   telemarketing, etc) companies.  
>

Unfortunately, it would also:

*  Require government registration of computers and databases containing
information about people (whether these computers are used by business or
individuals).  This eases regulation of computers and future confiscation.

*  Reduce market efficiency by making it harder to match buyers and sellers
(because neither could easily find out about he other) thus causing higher
prices and poorer people. 

*  Do nothing to protect personal information from the government which
would get to collect more of it than ever in the course of enforcing data
protection laws.

If you don't want people to know things about you, don't tell them.

DCF






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