Pentagon Project Could Put Powerful Software in Private Hands

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 08:10:42 -0700
> From: Judi Clark <judic () manymedia com>
>
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: Pentagon Project Could Put Powerful Software in Private Hands
>
>
> for IP:
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6164-2003Jun3.html?referrer=emailarticle
>
>  Pentagon Project Could Put Powerful Software in Private Hands
>
>  By Michael J. Sniffen
>
>  A Pentagon project to develop a digital super diary that records 
> heartbeats, travel, Internet chats — everything a person does — also 
> could provide private companies with powerful software to analyze behavior.
>
> That has privacy experts worried.
>
> Known as LifeLog, the project aims to capture and analyze a multimedia 
> record of everywhere a subject goes and everything he or she sees, hears, 
> reads, says and touches. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or 
> DARPA, has solicited bids and hopes to award four 18-month contracts 
> beginning this summer.
>
> <snip>
>
>  "Because you collected it voluntarily, the government can get it with a 
> search warrant," he said. "And an increasing amount of personal data is 
> also available from third parties. The government can get data from them 
> simply by asking or signing a subpoena."
>
> He notes that traffic and security cameras and automated tollbooth pass 
> records are already used by police to trace a person's path. Dempsey 
> questions how LifeLog's analytical software, in the hands of other 
> government agencies or the private sector, will interpret such data and 
> how Americans will be protected from errors.
>
> "You can go to the airport to pick up a friend, to claim lost luggage or 
> to case it for a terrorist attack. What story will LifeLog write from this 
> data?" he asked. "At the very least, you ought to know when someone is 
> using it and have the right to correct the 'story' it writes."
>
> <snip>
>
> Pentagon contracting documents give a sense of the project's scope.
>
> Cameras and microphones would capture what the user sees or hears; sensors 
> would record what he or she feels. Global positioning satellite sensors 
> would log every movement. Biomedical sensors would monitor vital signs. 
> E-mails, instant messages, Web-based transactions, telephone calls and 
> voicemails would be stored. Mail and faxes would be scanned. Links to 
> every radio and television broadcast heard and every newspaper, magazine, 
> book, Web site or database seen would be recorded.
>
> Breakthrough software would automatically produce an electronic diary that 
> organizes the data into "episodes" of the user's life, such as "I took the 
> 08:30 a.m. flight from Washington's Reagan National Airport to Boston's 
> Logan Airport," according to the documents.
>
> Walker said DARPA has no plans to develop software to analyze multiple 
> LifeLogs. But DARPA advised contractors that ultimately, with proper 
> anonymity, data from many LifeLogs could facilitate "early detection of an 
> emerging epidemic."


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