Data Privacy

Recently several months of AOL search data for more than 600,000 users was found on the Internet.  Although AOL 'anonymizes' users by assigning them an ID, users' identities are vulnerable to discovery as reported today by the New York Times.

We asked Berkman fellow Wendy Seltzer, who is also Brooklyn Law School assistant prof of 'Internet Law and Privacy' and formerly a staff attorney with Electronic Frontier Foundation, what she makes of the situation.

"I'd say it's a wakeup call about how much sensitive information we're trailing behind us in cyberspace, with little control of who might access and correlate it later.  Unfortunately, we're not yet at 6 a.m. in privacy awareness, and most of the public and businesses that serve us still aren't waking up.  Even as we're decrying AOL's release of these records, we should ask why the company kept them in the first place, and how much of our lives we're entrusting to companies who give similarly weak assurances of privacy.   We need to demand more privacy protection from technology and from the companies with whom we do business."

If you'd like to speak with Berkman faculty and fellows about this issue, contact Amanda Michel at (617) 384-9100.