http://news.ninemsn.com.au/01_national/story_10137.asp Privacy groups question giant Packer database AAP -- Privacy and consumer advocates today criticised plans by media magnate Kerry Packer to establish a giant data storage facility containing files on almost all Australians. The data warehouse will hold information on around 15 million people, gained from sources such as credit card companies, car sales records, retail stores, post office listings and even electoral rolls. The facility, which will have extensive cross-referencing capabilities, is a joint venture between the Packer-owned Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and the world's largest information provider, Acxiom corporation. PBL will also contribute information from Packer-owned sources such as Nine Network, Crown Casino, Ticketek and Internet site ninemsn. Australian Consumers Association senior policy officer Charles Britton said the data warehouse was a frightening innovation. "It's got the potential to be very intrusive if you like, because it's recording information from all sorts of different transactions that you've made and that are attributable to you personally," he told ABC radio. "I think people don't realise how much information they leave behind and I think the other thing is they don't realise how valuable that information is, particularly once it's aggregated with other information and starts to form profiles of people." Acxiom already holds files on 95 per cent of American households, or around 330 million people. Access to the Australian data warehouse operation, called InfoBase, will be available to companies seeking to improve their marketing efforts or uncover more information about their consumers. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
