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Government Data Warehousing and Surveillance

This article describes the results of a year-long audit by the federal General Accounting Office on the use of personal information by the government. It's much more widespread than has been previously reported, but not more than many people suspected. Interesting how TIA (blogged earlier) has morphed into MATRIX at the state level, and is very much alive. Snippet:
U.S. agencies collect, examine personal data on Americans

By Audrey Hudson, Washington Times, May 28, 2004

Numerous federal government agencies are collecting and sifting through massive amounts of personal information, including credit reports, credit-card purchases and other financial data, posing new privacy concerns, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO).

The GAO surveyed 128 federal departments and agencies and found that 52 are using, or planning to implement, 199 data-mining programs, with 131 already operational.

The Education, Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor, Justice, and Treasury departments are among those that use the contentious new technology to detect criminal or terrorist activity; manage human resources; gauge scientific research; detect fraud, waste and abuse; and monitor tax compliance.

The audit released yesterday shows 36 data-mining programs collect and analyze personal information that is purchased from the private sector, including credit reports and credit-card transactions. Additionally, 46 federal agencies share personal information that includes student-loan application data, bank-account numbers, credit-card information and taxpayer-identification numbers.

Posted by Mark Friday, May 28, 2004 12:40:00 PM | permalink |