As technology makes its easier to match databases and repackage personal information in commercially valuable forms, unease increases over the amount of information gathered and retained, where it comes from, how accurate it is, what use is made of it, and how individuals can control that use, especially when it is reused. Again, computers exacerbate the problem because they create a pervasive and long-lasting information trail that is decreasingly under the control of the individual involved.
Predictor: Levinson, Nan
Prediction, in context:In a 1992 paper about the Internet that is posted on the Electronic Frontier Foundation Internet site, Nan Levinson writes: ”As technology makes its easier to match databases and repackage personal information in commercially valuable forms, unease increases over the amount of information gathered and retained, where it comes from, how accurate it is, what use is made of it, and how individuals can control that use, especially when it is reused. Again, computers exacerbate the problem because they create a pervasive and long-lasting information trail that is decreasingly under the control of the individual involved.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Privacy/Surveillance
Name of publication: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Title, headline, chapter name: Electrifying Speech: New Communications Technologies and Traditional Civil Liberties
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/electrifying_speech.paper
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney