* What could happen if data mining by governments becomes routine
About two weeks ago, the Swedish government announced a proposal that would allow its National Defense Radio Establishment to search for content in international e-mail that entered or exited the country. The proposal, if enacted, would also allow the Swedish government to search through telephone communications, as well.
The Swedish proposal was announced just before the news that a U.S. Department of Justice audit found some Patriot Act-related abuses by the FBI. However, the abuses revealed by the Justice Department audit would pale in comparison to the powers that would be given to the Swedish government if the proposed legislation were enacted.
What would this mean for the average corporate or personal e-mail user? From a practical perspective, probably not much, since most of us don’t regularly correspond with people in Sweden. However, if the Swedish e-mail data-mining proposal goes into effect, look for governments around the world to at least start considering similar initiatives in their own countries.
If data mining by governments becomes routine, corporate and personal e-mail data will be scanned and stored, resulting in potential misuse of the data. Even if the data is not misused, it could be lost given government’s less than stellar handling of data. For example, of the nine data breaches recorded by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse between March 1 and March 13, seven were of data held by state or federal government entities.
An important takeaway from all of this is that in an age of terrorism we will continue to see the kinds of proposals put forth by the Swedish government. Most of these proposals are actually offered with good intentions, but the result is that your data will be more accessible to outsiders.
