Big Data and Little Privacy: What Do We Have to Fear?

Given all the hype over the confluence of Big Data and the federal government’s healthcare vision (not ObamaCare in particular, but the move toward a medical records database) it was just a matter of time before other government entities decided to hop on the bandwagon. Thus, with the recent revelation that Verizon is delivering all of their call record details to the NSA, we can safely assume that soon everyone-and-their-brother is going to be asking for this data and that IT folks are going to look at it the way a mountain climber looks at Mount Everest…as something to be conquered.

So what then should these IT folks expect to find at the peak of Call Records Mountain?

If the FCC were to have their way, new data could be published on the nature of phone calls, the actual quality of calls, and various other diagnostic metrics. On its face, this sounds very “Kumbaya”, all upside, with nothing but benefit to be had. However, unlike digitized healthcare records (the anonymity factor of which is being promoted so stridently) the government is not looking at this Big Data as an anonymous layer of network information. No, Call Records Mountain is being climbed with the goal of determining who is networking with whom, and so the value that Uncle Sam has placed on anonymity in one space is now being totally ignored in the other and we have a scenario in which the law of unintended consequences can go in effect.

Phone numbers are not perpetually yours, like a Social Security number or a Driver’s License, but are instead imparted and associated to you only as long as that tie is maintained. With significant ease, too, that tie can be manipulated. Numbers can be given to other people, families, businesses, and their permanence can be limited or extended at your choosing (in part thanks to number portability). As such, any call details database will be just an identity snapshot, one that can be falsely attributed to relationships that may or may not exist.

Is anyone out there a fan of robo dialers? For the sake of moving forward, can we just agree that they are universally loathed? OK, great.

So with Congress having given robo dialers free reign, I think we can confidently assume that any and all terrorists living in the U.S. have been in contact by phone with the President and all recent presidential candidates, the senators and congressmen of the locality in which they reside and any recent challengers for those offices, and many other political figures who would just as soon not be associated with their like. Therefore, isn’t it only fitting that McCarthy-like congressional hearings be held and that these politicians be interrogated as to why they have been attempting to contact known terrorists?  At worst, this would be terrific theater. At best? Well, it could very well kill rob calling, bang-dead.

So humor aside, here is the real issue: A phone call made does not represent a plot. 

As IT Sherpas climb Call Records Mountain, any substantial concerns over being tracked are sure to be be met by considerably defiant efforts to justify acquisition of the data. Understanding this, I submit that before the slide down this slippery slope can pick up too much speed, the government should square its vision of patient information gathering with that of call records data acquisition. If the value can be derived without knowing the patient names (and therefore protecting the individuals), can’t the same value be gained without knowing other identification specifics? And then, should circumstances arrive where this-or-that agency has reason to identify an individual they can do so with a second court order specifying so, in detail.