Study Seeks Technology Safeguards for Privacy

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Study Seeks Technology Safeguards for Privacy

December 19, 2002
By JOHN MARKOFF 


The Pentagon has released a study that recommends the
government pursue specific technologies as potential
safeguards against the misuse of data-mining systems
similar to those now being considered by the government to
track civilian activities electronically in the United
States and abroad. 

The study, "Security and Privacy," was commissioned in late
2001 before the advent of the Pentagon's Total Information
Awareness system, which is under the leadership of Dr. John
M. Poindexter, national security adviser in the Reagan
administration. The study was conducted by a group of
civilian and military researchers, the Information Sciences
and Technologies Study Group, or ISAT, which meets annually
to review technology problems.

A Washington privacy group, the Electronic Privacy
Information Center, filed a Freedom of Information request
last month with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, or Darpa, and made the report available
yesterday. 

The privacy group had asked the military to release
documents relating to any review of the privacy
implications of the Total Information Awareness system.
Yesterday a group official said the study did not appear to
be a complete response to its request. "They seem to be
saying they have made no assessment of the privacy issues
raised by the Total Information Awareness system," said
David Sobel, general counsel for the group. "It's
disturbing." 

The study concludes that technologies can be adapted to
permit surveillance while minimizing exposure of individual
information. Those technologies include automated tracing
of access to database records; the ability to hide
individual identification while conducting searches of
databases with millions of records; and the ability to
segregate databases and to block access to people without
authorization. 

"Perhaps the strongest protection against abuse of
information systems is Strong Audit mechanisms," the
authors wrote. "We need to watch the watchers."

But several study participants said there was also
widespread skepticism within the group about whether
technological safeguards would protect privacy.

"It's laughable they gave our report in response" to the
privacy group's request, said Barbara Simons, an ISAT
member who is the former president of the Association of
Computing Machinery. "We weren't looking at Total
Information Awareness, and we weren't looking at policy
issues." 

The study was commissioned in the wake of the Sept. 11
attacks. It drew together 41 computer scientists and policy
and civil liberties experts at several meetings this year.

The report specifically notes that it is not a review of
the Total Information Awareness system or any other
program. The authors also note that they intentionally
focused only on technology, not on policy issues.

A Darpa spokeswoman did not respond to a request for
comment. 

Dr. Poindexter took over in February as director of the
Information Awareness Office, one of two Darpa agencies
created after Sept. 11 to combat new kinds of warfare.

The Information Awareness Office is developing a prototype
of a system that might cast a vast electronic net to detect
suspicious patterns of behavior - possibly alerting the
authorities to terrorist attacks. But the prototype system
has drawn angry reactions from privacy advocates and others
because it could lead to elaborate monitoring of civilians.


The Information Awareness Office was a sponsor of the
study, and Dr. Poindexter was a participant in one meeting,
several participants said. Dr. Poindexter has said publicly
that he has begun discussions with the National Academy of
Science to finance a long-range study of the privacy
implications of new surveillance technologies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/19/national/19COMP.html?ex=1041304089&ei=1&en
=405d25536916233c



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