-Caveat Lector- http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/washtech/techweek/A26622-2001May14.html Wednesday, May 16, 2001; Page G10 Night and Day, Computers Collect Information By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer The data collection begins in the morning, when Americans first sign onto the World Wide Web to check the weather or buy a book. It continues during their commute, as cameras and electronic toll booths chronicle their drive to the office. Someone may be monitoring workers at their jobs, recording what they buy at the grocery store, noting their whereabouts while they use their cell phones and scrutinizing their drug prescriptions. From morning until night, the mundane details of life are being tracked, recorded and analyzed. Cheaper computing power and a vastly expanding Internet have enabled businesses, government agencies and many others to watch what was once unwatchable and glean meaning and profit from the ephemera of daily activity. Data giants have created dossiers containing names, addresses, incomes, purchases and other details about 200 million American adults -- and then flashed them to customers on demand. Profile specialists make models of what consumers are likely to do or buy. All the while, information brokers look for data to sell, with rogue operators sometimes using trickery to collect details about bank accounts, stock portfolios, telephone calls and other confidential information. Many Americans believe that data collection has already gone too far. But information experts say this is only the beginning of an era in which more people and institutions will seek access to personal details not available in the past. "The tracking technologies we're talking about now are ubiquitous," said Deirdre Mulligan, director of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley. "It has become so cheap and so easy." The benefits of the electronic aggregation of personal details are considerable -- and often made possible by individuals who actively share data in exchange for discounts, conveniences and the like. Growing files of medical information often help doctors and hospitals provide better treatment. Commuter information gleaned from toll booths can help regulate traffic flow and plan highways. Sales data can help stores control their inventory and keep prices down and profits up. Many companies use their growing stores of personal information to fight fraud. The data that grocery stores collect about shopping habits allow the stores to offer discounts and special promotions to keep profitable customers coming back. In addition, a growing number of companies, including hotel chains, use data collected about visits to personalize their services. "Information allows marketers to try and bring the personal touch back in," said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president for government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association. "Part of the vibrant economy is that Americans have all the choices. If we restricted that flow of information, it would reduce those choices." At the same time, citizens and policymakers fear the erosion of privacy, surveys show. They worry that companies will use data to manipulate customers or share data without permission. One tangible threat of the proliferation of personal data is identity theft by fraud artists, who take on the persona of an individual and then run up bills in that name. This fraud has been fueled by easy access to Social Security numbers and other personal data. In a new report, federal regulators estimate that more than 500,000 people are victims of identity theft each year. A recent victim was golfing phenomenon Tiger Woods, surely one of the most recognizable figures in America. Using Woods's Social Security number, Anthony Taylor of Sacramento received a driver's license and credit cards in Woods's name and was convicted of making $17,000 in fraudulent purchases. Privacy advocates also worry about the government's use of personal information. The FBI, for instance, operates a computer system called Carnivore that, under a court order, can monitor the Internet for e-mail sent by suspects or others. To help track down parents who owe child support, the federal Administration for Children and Families has created a computerized data-monitoring system that includes all individuals with new jobs and the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, bank accounts and wages of working adults throughout the United States. One consequence of all this is that Congress has sharpened its focus on the privacy issue, with members introducing dozens of bills to regulate the flow of data. In recent years, Congress has approved restrictions on the use of driver records, financial data and information about children surfing the World Wide Web. The Bush administration has pledged to implement new medical privacy regulations approved by the Clinton administration, albeit with changes. "A lot of these things, looked at in isolation, may not seem provocative or invasive," said Stephen Keating, executive director of the Privacy Foundation, a research group in Denver. "But when you look at them collectively, it's clear we may be losing the ability to have a private life. That's why everyone feels so much unease about it." Surveys have shown repeatedly that nine of 10 people worry about privacy, with about three-quarters saying they are concerned, said Alan Westin, president of Privacy and American Business. Regardless of how Americans view the issue, however, there is no question about the increase of information-gathering in daily life. From dawn to dusk and beyond, data is collected, massaged, sold and scrutinized every day of the year. When people log onto their computers and visit their favorite Web sites, a computer is almost certainly watching. That's because most Web sites use "cookies," little strings of numbers and symbols that enable the site to track online peregrinations. Companies such as Engage Inc., an online advertising and marketing specialist, use cookies to create detailed profiles of what the people using a particular computer see and do at thousands of Web sites. The information can be used to target ads so that someone whose Web habits indicated he was outdoors-oriented and affluent might get personalized ads for, say, high-end sport-utility vehicles. Most online companies post privacy policies, but making sense of them can be taxing. Sometimes the policies simply note that a company has no plans to take responsibility for how the information is used. Driving used to be virtually anonymous unless the police handed out a ticket for speeding or a commuter saw a friend along the road. Now more than 7.5 million Americans have traded away information about their whereabouts for the convenience and efficiency of electronic tolls like those used on the Greenway in Loudoun County and on highways and bridges across the country. If drivers have a transponder in their car, the automatic toll systems record when they entered a stretch of highway and when they left. This information is used for billing. It can sometimes be reviewed by law enforcement authorities. In some cases, travel records can be subpoenaed for civil lawsuits to establish whereabouts. Monitoring has also increased in the workplace. The proportion of major firms that check employee e-mail, monitor telephone calls or use cameras to record worker activity has increased from about a third in 1997 to more than three-quarters this year, according to surveys by the American Management Association. Some of the policies are aimed at maintaining productivity, others at preventing illegal or improper use of company property. An array of companies, including Dow Chemical Co. and the New York Times Co., have fired workers recently for violating company e-mail policies. In 1999, the New York Times fired more than 20 employees for e-mailing "inappropriate and offensive" material, such as sex jokes and sexually explicit materials. Dow Chemical fired about 50 employees for improperly using e-mail and suspended 200 for sending sexually explicit or violent images using the company's communications system. In the course of a day, opportunities arise for data collection if employees run errands on their lunch breaks, such as filling prescriptions. When people use prescription cards provided by health plans, the pharmacy flashes information about the prescription to a pharmacy benefit manager, which tracks the drugs that are being bought. The pharmacy benefit manager could urge the pharmacist -- instantly -- to ask patients to switch to a cheaper drug, and if the pharmacist is successful in getting the customer to agree, the pharmacist might be rewarded. In addition, some benefit managers send representatives directly to doctors to suggest different drug therapies for particular patients. On the way home from work, a typical family might use a shopper card to receive a discount on groceries. The grocery store records every purchase made and adds those details to a database file. The grocery's marketers use the database to track eating and spending habits, and to make personalized offers to customers. In some cases, law enforcement authorities subpoena grocery records when they believe it can help an investigation. That's what happened during a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation in Arizona not long ago. There is no break at home either. Computers, hand-held computing devices, digital television . . . these devices and a fast-growing number of others all enable someone to track personal activities. The act of calling a toll-free 800-number in response to a TV commercial can lead to the creation of a file about the caller. When drug companies urge consumers to call, they are sometimes building files of people with particular ailments. Withholding a name during the call is no guarantee they don't know who the caller is. Armed with a telephone number (which shows up on a computer screen as the call comes in) a company called Acxiom can zip name, address and details about a household to an operator while the caller waits on the line. "Every device that you have that is connected to some other electronic device generates some transactional record," said James Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit advocacy group in the District. "Every time you reach for your wallet, unless you pay in cash, you're generating a record." While Americans sleep, data warehousers, marketers, financial services companies and insurers are constantly buying, sharing and parsing data about family income, spending habits, purchases, house value, children and so forth. Their stated aim is to improve their marketing efforts and to personalize services. They also want to identify the most profitable customers -- and stop paying valuable attention to the rest. "This stuff is just beginning," said Joseph Turow, a professor and privacy specialist at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. "Just because we haven't heard of disastrous invasions of privacy as the result of the collection of information, [we shouldn't say] it won't happen. We can safely assume there will be major abuses." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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