about Privacy

What Is Privacy?
-A common theme in privacy is the notion of access:
--Physical proximity to the person
--Knowledge about that person
-People need a certain amount of privacy to maintain their dignity and freedom.
--How much dignity would you have if  everyone could read your mind?
-Information about people can be of great value to society.
--Many parents would like to know the identities of convicted sex offenders.

The Privacy Problem
-Protection against invasion of privacy is not explicitly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
--The right to privacy is implied by other constitutional guarantees.
--Debates rage about what this means.
-Federal and state laws provide forms of privacy protection.
--Most of those laws were written years ago.
-Most European countries have had strong privacy protection laws for years.

No Secrets: Computers and Privacy
-Workplace monitoring technology enables managers to learn more than ever before about the work habits and patterns of workers.
-Surveillance cameras are used increasingly for nabbing routine traffic violators and detecting security violators. Their data can be combined with picture databases to locate criminals—and others.
-Surveillance satellites can provide permanent peepholes into our lives for anyone willing to pay the price.
-Cell phones are now required, by law, to include technology to determine and transmit their locations to emergency personnel responding to 911 calls.

Rules of Thumb: Your Private Rights

-Your Social Security number is yours —don’t give it away.
-Say “no” to direct mail and phone solicitations, sharing of personal information, and pollsters.
-Know your electronic rights.
-Support organizations that fight for privacy rights.

Lesson Summary
-Database programs enable users to quickly and efficiently store, organize, retrieve, communicate, and manage large amounts of information.
-Database programs enable users to view data in a variety of ways, sort records in any order, and print reports, mailing labels, and other custom printouts.
-Database management systems (DBMSs) can work with several data sources at once, cross-referencing information among files when appropriate.
-The trend today is clearly away from large, centralized databases accessible only to data-processing staff.
-Organizations are moving toward a client/server approach that enables users to have access to data stored in servers throughout the organization’s network.
-The accumulation of data by government agencies and businesses is a growing threat to our right to privacy.
-While there are many legitimate uses for these procedures, there is also a great potential for abuse.