Sensitive data

[cjsmith]

"Over time, the probability that any entity holding a large store of sensitive private data will remain both competent enough to protect it adequately and honest enough to want to goes to zero." -Matt Blaze (Twitter)

Some comments are clearly just wanking, but some raise (imo) good points.

Comments

[metahacker]

See also a number of articles ten ish years ago on personal data as toxic waste: dangerous to store, prone to leakage, hard to get rid of...

[cjsmith]

Yes. Along those lines, one of the comments to the tweet above says “the probability that any entity who has decided to hold a large store of sensitive private data was ever honest enough to want to protect it tends to zero.” and I think there’s a lot to be said for that.

[janetl]

The point about how the sensitivity of information changes over time is so true.

[cjsmith]

Absolutely. If nothing else, lots of my information that I'd consider sensitive today becomes much less sensitive after my death. Information that I was planning to quit my job in August of 2008 is suddenly not sensitive at all in September of 2008.

[hitchhiker]

i've also seen articles about how the new have-nots could be people who lack privacy, because more and more things can use your data as leverage.

[cjsmith]

Interesting way to look at it. I’d be intrigued to see how an article explored that idea.

[hitchhiker]

i saw this one go by recently: https://medium.com/privateid-blog/privacy-inequality-the-most-brutal-form-of-inequality-youve-ever-imagined-e674d4f3cd42

starts off a bit unfocused; if you find yourself skimming search for "dehumanizing people" and read from there onwards.

[cjsmith]

Thank you! Definitely took a little while to see what the writer was intending to say, but now I get the gist. It seems like there are two key points: 1) overwhelmingly and increasingly, people are willing to give up privacy for free stuff; and 2) enough data about an individual, linked to that individual, can be detrimental (in a couple of ways: it opens the person to strong influences that may not be in their best interest, and conclusions drawn from it may be used to deny them opportunities).