Privacy - the First Roadkill on the Information Superhighway?

by Stephen Lau Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data at the Hong Kong Information Infrastructure (HKII) Expo & Conference, February 12 & 13, 1998 Hong Kong

Information Superhighway

Telematics - The marriage of computer and telecommunications technologies - is creating new applications and services in our daily lives. The awesome growth of INTERNET with 40 million people world-wide now surfing the Net for fun, information and profit; the pervasiveness of interactive multimedia services offering entertainment, information and home-based services is growing and inevitable.

The information superhighway, a world-wide information and communication infrastructure, will greatly facilitate the exchange of information between individuals and for the new initiatives in electronic commerce.

However, accompanying these innovations are very significant privacy implications. In the words of Bruce Philip, Canada's Privacy Commissioner:

"The term Information Superhighway undoubtedly implies linking up vast sources of information by computers and telecommunications, and making that information available to vastly increased numbers of people... Unless some sensible rules of traffic management are a part of these systems, the first roadkill will be our personal privacy and dignity... These are not alarmist observations. On the contrary, it is difficult to exaggerate the potential consequences of carelessness or indifference to privacy in this looming new environment."

I am sure we all recall the famous quote from Andy Warhol that "In life, everyone will be famous, prominently visible in the limelight, for 15 minutes". With appropriate twist and irony, it is said that "in cyberspace, everyone will be anonymous for only 15 minutes" ¹.

Take Internet as a discussion point.

Today the Net is multiple networks with many pathways connecting many thousands of computers. Messages which could contain sensitive personal data can be routed around the world via countries without any or without adequate data protection legislation. The Net has no central switching centre, no central authority in charge. It resides nowhere and everywhere. That is its power-and its challenge to privacy.

Unless security measures are taken, sending E-mail over INTERNET is not like making a telephone call; it's more like broadcasting. In fact, not only are our messages to public newsgroups or forums accessible to others, marketers can systematically data mine the Net to assemble personal profiles and target lists for market research and direct marketing. Now, with INTERNET facilities like YAHOO with its indexing facilities, powerful search engines and the proliferation of various directories, one might not even get 15 minutes of anonymity.