Safe and Private Data

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Safe and Private Data

• Computers and Privacy
• Databases
• Your Private Rights
• Cookies

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No Secrets Computers and Privacy

• The Privacy Problem

Big Brother and Big Business
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The Privacy Problem
You live in an information age. Data about you is
bought, sold, and traded.

• The typical American consumer is on 25 marketing
  lists.
• Data about your age, income, religion, health,
  political affiliation, travel activity, sexual
  preference, and much more exists on databases.

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Big Brother and Big Business
Databases on high-speed computers are networked
across the globe. The shared data brings benefits
and risks

• Governments uses record matching to locate
  criminals.
• Not all data in the databases is accurate.
• Erroneous data is nearly impossible to correct.
• Data is not secure from misuse and abuse.

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Data Banks

• Every time you use a credit card to make a
  purchase, telephone an 800 or 900 number, order
  from a catalog, buy or rent a car, reserve a
  hotel room or airline ticket, visit a doctor, go
  to the hospital, apply for insurance, take out a
  mortgage, seek a loan-- in effect, engage in
  almost any transaction- you give information
  about yourself
• This information is worth millions of

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Caller Id Controversy

• gathers personal data from customers
• benefits obscene callers ....
• critics people need to keep their anonymity
• people who call AIDS hot lines, callers from
  crime reports, probation officers

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Technology risks

• The belief that whatever comes out of the
  computer must be accurate.
• Credit bureaus know intimate financial details
  about you
• extremely easy for others to obtain this
  information
• the need for an informed citizenry
• vigilance is the price of freedom

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Rules of Thumb Your Private Rights

• Your social security number should only be given
  to legitimate persons or agencies.
• Dont give away information about yourself. Dont
  fill out coupons, surveys, sweepstakes entries
• Say no to direct mail and phone solicitations.
  (I never purchase or donate anything as a result
  of phone solicitations) ask them to be removed
  from the list

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Rules of Thumb Your Private Rights

• To maximize privacy, minimize your electronic
  transactions. To maximize your privacy, minimize
  your profile (cash, unlisted number and P.O. box)
• Make sure data about you is correct and not
  damaging.
• Know your privacy rights.
• Support privacy rights organizations.

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Your Private Rights

• If solicitors call within 12 months of being
  specifically told not to, you can sue and recover
  up to 500 per call according to the Telephone
  Consumer Protection Act of 1991.

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Getting Off Mailing List

• Send back unwanted letters along with Take me
  off your list requests in the postage paid
  envelopes that come with them.
• You can remove your name from many lists by
  sending your name, address and phone number to

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Getting Off of Mailing Lists

• Mail Preference Service/
• Phone Preference Service
• Direct Mail Marketing Association
• 6 East 43rd Street
• New York, NY 10017

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Data Security

• Sensitive personal and corporate data are not
  exposed to any kind of risk
• data must be accurate - database integrity
• example - the waste of direct mailers that never
  get to the intended consumer (deceased, moved,
  pet name)
• false invoices deposited into companys db by
  unscrupulous employee

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What is a Cookie?

• Cookies on the Web
• Analogy - Caller ID - It tells the person on the
  other end what your phone number is
• Cookies are pretty much the same thing
• A web site can tell, who you are by looking at
  its cookie
• A cookie is just some letters and numbers stored
  in your browser

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The Information obtained from a Cookie

• Anything you tell or do at a web site that uses
  cookies it will remember the next time you visit
• Example If you type in your name and address at
  the web site it will remember the information the
  next time you visit or it can remember the pages
  you visited

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What are Cookies used for?

• It is a convenient way for web sites to maintain
  information on users
• It sets your personal preferences for that site
  and avoids retyping the information again

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Cookies and Browsers

• Web Browsers (Netscape IE) set aside a small
  amount of space on your hard drive
• The Browser checks to see if you have any
  predefined preference (i.e cookie) for that
  server
• If you do, it sends the cookie to the server
  along with the request for the web page

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Cookies and Marketing

• This information and choices can be used to
  provide you with more direct marketing
  information
• This is why people are nervous about
  over-commercialization and privacy issues

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An Example of a Cookie

• Suppose you visit http//www.joegarage.com
• Joes Garage uses cookies
• You type in your name and address and you browse
  Joes page on all about oil changes
• Now, Joe knows that you are interested in oil
  changes and he has your address so he sends you a
  coupon for a half-price oil change in mail

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Cookies and Privacy

• But note that the cookie cannot obtain more
  information than what you gave, for example it
  cannot get your email address unless you gave it
• And only the web server which put the cookie on
  your browser can use it

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Cookies and Privacy

• If you use Netscape you can tell when a web site
  is trying to pull a cookie on you
• Under Netscape Edit Menu --gt Preferences --gt
  Advanced, a dialog window will appear with one
  indented box labeled cookies
• There are 4 options here to select from
• Perhaps the safest way is to check the option
  that warns before accepting a cookie
• Up to now the cookies are benign