|
|
Find out more about Medical Privacy Legislation
Learn how private companies are selling information on children under the age of 15 years old.
Find out about a case challenging magazines and other companies that sell their subcribers' names to other direct marketers.
Read C-Net's extensive coverage of the Privacy IssueThe "Personal Information" field? That's the euphemism being used to describe businesses that, for a price, give a customer access to databases that house your social security number, your medical records, your phone numbers, your maiden name, your aliases, and more. Think this is illegal? Can't imagine what kind of company would "sell" this kind of information on the open market?
For starters, it's not illegal. But who would sell it? Lexis-Nexis - one of the country's leading information brokers offering services to law firms, researchers and journalist, for one - though recent negative publicity has caused the company to discontinue posting your social security number.
There are moves afoot to try to block access to what most of us think is confidential information.
Mark Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. will answer questions about efforts in Congress to block the sale of personal information, including medical records - which Rotenberg fears could become a billion dollar business - and data on children under 15 year old.
A question from Bernie Eisenstadt, Culver City, CA :
Do records have to be correct if they're sold? With a name like mine, it is probably less likely, but what happens if your name is "Bill Stephens" and your records are mistaken with another Bill Stephens?
Mark Rotenberg responds:
There are virtually no legal requirements that personal information be accurate when it is sold. Credit reporting agencies are required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide accurate information about consumers, and banks and other financial institutions are generally careful, as are medical organizations. But as you move to the marketing industry, practices tend to be more lax.
It's generally a good idea when you see inaccurate information about yourself to ask that the record be corrected.
A question from Beth Baylin, Bethesda, MD:
There are many dangerous people out there. Are the information vendors going to be held responsible by our government if a stalker uses a personal information database to find a victim's whereabouts?
Mark Rotenberg responds:
This is a timely question. In the past month a reporter for KCBS-TV in Los Angeles obtained a detailed computer printout of the ages and addresses of 5,500 children living in Pasadena simply by sending $277 to a Chicago database firm. She used the name "Richard Allan Davis," the person who was just convicted for the murder of Polly Klaas, and she paid with a money order.
The company later apologized for the incident, but the episode made clear that there are too few safeguards in the marketing industry. Congressman Bob Franks (R-NJ) has introduced The Children Privacy Protection and Parental Empowerment Act to limit some of the greatest abuses. [More information about children's privacy is available at http://www.epic.org/privacy/kids/]
The Franks bill is a good idea. Another approach is to design systems that limit the collection of personal information and avoid the risk that data might be misused. Consider a payphone: you can make a local call with change, the phone company gets paid, and no personal information is left behind. This is very good from a privacy perspective.
One company that is exploring anonymous payment schemes is Digicash. You can learn more about them by going to their Web site at http://www.digicash.com/
A question from Elaine Axel, Va Beach, VA:
Where do the information sellers get their data? Isn't it already available in some public record somewhere? If not, who is selling it to them? Is easy access to these databases what's really scaring people?
Mark Rotenberg responds:
Personal information is obtained from many sources. Some information is obtained through public records such as land records. Other information is obtained in ways that might be considered deceptive or fraudulent. For example, consumer warranty cards and consumer surveys produce a great deal of information that is resold by information brokers and direct marketers.
Still other information is clearly sold illegally as when it was revealed that employees of the Social Security Administration were selling records to information brokers.
One of the current problems with the marketing industry is that there are few incentives to limit the misuse of personal information. As long as data has value, it is likely to be sold unless there are penalties to stop this practice.
A question from Melissa Schwartz, Miami, FLA:
I can see the obvious threats to society that instant availability of personal information can bring, but are there any advantages? How, for example, could we benefit from a national database of medical records?
Mark Rotenberg responds:
Clearly the automation of personal information brings many benefits to both consumers and businesses. In fact, it's almost impossible to imagine any modern organization that did not take advantage of computer systems.
But there are still important choices to be made about the use of these systems. For example, a doctor should have easy access to a patients records, but should an employer or prospective employer? What about a neighbor or a spouse, or perhaps a business competitor? One of the goals of privacy laws and policies is to encourage the development of information systems that preserve generally accepted expectations of privacy. For medical records, this would probably mean that people other than your doctor or health care provider should not have access to your medical records.
[More information about medical record privacy is available at http://www.epic.org/privacy/medical/]
A question from Ray Gratrix, Ridgecrest, CA:
A libertarian/free market approach to this problem goes like this:
Personal information is owned by the person in question. If companies wish to obtain or sell the information, they would have to (a) obtain the person's permission; (b) pay the person a royalty for the information. (The information obviously has value, as companies pay other companies for it).
Has this idea been considered in any of the proposed legislation?
Mark Rotenberg responds:
This idea has not yet received attention in Congress, but it was the focus of a court case brought recently by Ram Avrahami. Mr. Avrahami sued U.S. News & World Report for selling his name on a mailing list without his permission. He cited a Virginia statute which said that, "Any person whose name, portrait, or picture is used without having first obtained the written consent of such person... for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade" may bring a legal action for damages.
The Virginia court concluded that in this case the law was not violated. But it left open the possibility that other similar suits might succeed. I would not be at all surprised if other property-based approaches to privacy protection are pursued. As more personal information goes online and as more companies seek to collect and sell this data, it would seem likely that individuals consumers will claim some type of property interest. As Mr. Avrahami says, "I own my name."
[More information about the Avrahami v. USN&WR report case can be found at http://www.epic.org./privacy/junk_mail/]
ADDITIONAL COMMENT
A question from John C. Glover Esq., Milwaukee, WIS:
This has become a nightmare.
What people can do with private information can destroy innocent lives. Little if anything can be done once the information has been wrongly applied. To think that private and public agencies or businesses will use it soley for beneficial and lawful purposes would be a mistake. Information is power. What few rights we have protected by the Bill of Rights, including the Fourth Amendment will further be eroded. I think that this is frightening.
Click here for a forum menu.
| |||||
 | |||||
| |||||
|
|
| |||
| |||||
| |||||
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | |||||
