STATISTICS - PRIVACY AND SECURITY
As modern society comes to depend more and more on information, new problems of individual rights and privacy arise. People want information about many things, such as the latest figures on jobs for school leavers, or up to the minute accuracy on personal bank account balances from automatic teller machines. At the same time, many people are concerned that too much data about individuals is being stored on computer databases and accessed by persons or organisations unknown to them.
Writers and film-makers have painted terrifying pictures of futuristic societies where the thought and action of human beings are controlled by all-powerful computers. Such fears are often exaggerated in the interests of good fiction. However, there are important issues that society must handle to ensure that rights of the individual are protected in the information age. This section discusses some of these issues.
PROVIDING INFORMATION
In daily life, nearly all people provide information about themselves to many different organisations. To get borrowing rights from a video shop or local library it is usually necessary to complete a personal particulars form. Taxpayers and users of government services must provide details about themselves to government.
Likewise, banks and big retailers will only issue credit cards to a customer if they know something about the income, occupation, family status and other details of that customer. Health services often collect and store a lot of data about each client they treat.
These are just a few examples of where the individual is required to provide personal information, much of which is entered into computer databases. There is a concern that it may be possible for authorities, commercial organisations and others to access and link such databases. In this way, data profiles (or information pictures) on individuals could be put together and perhaps used in a way that disadvantages the individual.
If one accepts the principle of personal privacy, then it follows that personal information should not be used for a purpose other than that which its collection was authorised, without the permission of the person to whom the information relates.
There is also concern that individual privacy and corporate confidentiality may be breached by hacking into computer databases. ‘Hacking’ usually applies to computer users who gain unauthorised access to large databases, and even amend the datafiles. Such activity is highly illegal.
“The need for the protection of privacy is more evident in modern Australian society than ever before. Increasing powers given to public officials to intrude on people’s lives, new intrusive business practices such as credit reporting and direct mailing, and new computer and surveillance technology which allows information to be manipulated, matched, compared and profiled both locally and internationally, have altered the level of control that individuals have over their own affairs.”
Australian Geographic Society (Sydney, 1988)
These concerns about information privacy are legitimate; however, there are many beneficial aspects to the provision of information. Earlier sections have emphasised the role of information in the decision-making processes of society. Information is necessary for many aspects of modern society to function efficiently. Therefore, people who provide information need to have confidence that their privacy and security are protected.
PRIVACY AND SECURITY STEPS
Today’s young people will need more data, and greater skills in data handling, to assist in making decisions in the years ahead. As the information age continues to expand, it is also important to remember that the desire for privacy remains an essential issue to be considered.
In Australia, government and community organisations are increasingly taking steps to ensure that privacy of statistical information can be safeguarded in the computer-based information age. Some examples of these steps are:
- the Commonwealth Privacy Commissioner’s examination of data exchange arrangements between government agencies;
- groups such as the Australian Privacy Foundation and other community watchdog organisations have been working to ensure that individual rights and liberties are not unduly compromised by large scale data collections;
- holders of data are encouraged to maintain tight security procedures, so that only those with the correct authorisation can access databases;
- much more secure telecommunications links are now available for transmission of data between different locations of a particular government agency or business organisation; and
- tighter procedures are also in place to counter the spread of computer viruses, whereby important information can be destroyed or distorted by a piece of rogue programming introduced into a computer network.
ABS, PRIVACY AND SECURITY
As the national statistical agency, the Australian Bureau of Statistics takes measures to ensure that the privacy and security of data provided by individuals and organisations is carefully protected.
These measures involve:
- strict access controls to databases where information is stored: even for people working at the ABS, passwords are needed for entry to specific databases;
- strengthened security arrangements on buildings from which the ABS operates: access to floors where census and survey forms are processed is denied to the general public;
- for household based surveys and censuses, the ABS does not store names and addresses of people on its databases;
- forms provided by individual respondents to ABS census and survey collections are destroyed under careful supervision once processed;
- care is taken by the ABS to ensure that no individual respondent can be identified from the statistics it publishes; and
- the Census and Statistics Act sets stiff penalties for any officer or employee of the Bureau who divulges confidential data without authority.
- The ABS and its staff have a strong commitment to ensuring that privacy rights of individuals and confidential affairs of organisations are not compromised through the collection and publication of official statistics.
EXERCISES
| 1. | List the various organisations where personal data about yourself might be stored. List some of the uses that might be made of the data. Which uses do you think are appropriate? Are there any that you consider inappropriate? |
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| 2. | Does your school hold data and information about you on computer? If so, what sort of data and information is available for you to look at? Is any of the data or information private, and if so, why? |
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| 3. | Imagine you are in charge of computer security in a government agency or commercial organisation. What steps would you take to ensure that personal information held in the organisation’s databases is not accessed without authority? |
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| 4. | Do you think computers will ever be more powerful or intelligent than human beings? Discuss as a class. |
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