NCJ Number
94791
Date Published
1984
Length
38 pages
Annotation
Threats to privacy posed by surveillance technology and by the rapid growth of data base linkages in government and industry are examined.
Abstract
That the amount of information kept on citizens' lives has increased and continues to increase is attributed to citizens' need for services such as health and education and to the demand by government and business for information to assess these services. Immense corporate data banks maintain records on health, home banking, and financial transactions; two-way interactive cable television is capable of creating new, more broadly based data systems that reveal a great deal about the consumer's lifestyle. However, even more extensive than the corporate data bases are those maintained by the Federal Goverment, particularly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which maintains two data bases: the Identification Division and the National Crime Information Centers (NCIC). The Identification Division maintains the fingerprints of more than 63 million people; fewer than half have criminal records. The NCIC is a computerized network that links all the individuals who work in the country's 57,000 different Federal, State, and local criminal justice agencies. Thus, a police officer in a patrol car has the entire FBI files at his/her disposal at any time. Surveillance activities, such as those undertaken by the National Security Agency, will also be made easier by direct data base linkages. Legislation and technological attempts to stem loss of privacy are discussed, and increased public sensitivity to the issue is reported. The need to strengthen the Privacy Act is emphasized.