Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 19, 1994 TAG: 9405190161
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By THOMAS B. ROSENSTIEL LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
There was no revolution, no totalitarian takeover, no war bringing the collapse of worldwide democracy.
But by an invention here and a new computer application there, American culture is nearing the point forewarned by those who feared technology could breed a new kind of oppression.
Americans are potentially under surveillance - watched, videotaped and digitally monitored - for most of their waking hours.
It isn't necessarily the government doing the watching. Often it is employers, doctors, insurers and merchants - seeking security or gathering information in an invisible universe of mostly unregulated databases, the memory bank of the electronic culture.
Direct marketers have ``master files'' that include half the U.S. population categorized by intimate details. Anyone can subscribe to databases such as Sleuth, Asset Locator and People Finder. They sound like video games, but they have a very serious purpose: Through them, you can learn of people's real estate holdings, the value of their homes, their children's ages, even their neighbors' phone numbers.
The technology offers people and institutions efficiency and security.
But some worry that it could prove to be too much of a good thing. The widening electronic culture is bringing new pressure to bear on individualism and privacy. And as the nation accelerates onto the information superhighway, what is the effect of all the rattling machinery on people's behavior, creativity and peace?
And the trend will only intensify. Soon, for example, cable carriers will know not only what programs you watch but also what you read on interactive television sets. Once the TV cable becomes the conduit for most of our entertainment, shopping and financial transactions, it will also be an accessible storehouse of information about our lives.
How much surveillance goes on and how it is used are difficult to know precisely. But given the modest limitations imposed by law, scholars say the potential for abuse is enormous.
``The only rules which limit the use of the most personal information by direct marketers are the rules which the marketers voluntarily choose to follow,'' Mary Culnan, an associate professor at the Georgetown University School of Business in Washington, testified earlier this year to a government task force.
University of Colorado sociologist Gary Marx worries about a less apparent problem:
``On a broad social scale, what does the presence of cameras and all these other things do to people's behavior?''
One thing they are doing is helping to stop crime. A man was convicted of murder recently in Rochester, N.Y., because the computer at the convenience store where he claimed to be shopping during the crime obliterated his alibi.
Information technology is turning the business of private investigation topsy turvy. The job that was once the preserve of gumshoes like Philip Marlowe, whose assets were their charm, fists and gun, now falls in the province of mouses and modems.
Using Information America, a commonly available commercial database, anyone can plug into People Finder and find the phone number, address, dwelling type, estimated age and average income of 70 million Americans and 10 million businesses, not to mention the average price of a house in every neighborhood.
A database called Assets has property records for people nearly everywhere in the country. The Lawsuit databank offers court records. Other databases hold records on bankruptcies, liens, births and deaths, high school and college listings, wedding announcements and more. Any information is available within hours.
In 1990, the congressional General Accounting Office reported there were 910 federal databanks containing health, financial, Social Security and other personal information around the country; many of them were shared with corporations and commercial databanks.
Jeff Smith, an assistant professor at Georgetown University's Graduate School of Business, has written what some experts call the most thorough analysis of corporate America's approach to privacy. ``Managing Privacy: Information Technology and Corporate America'' is a soon-to-be-published study of how banks, insurance companies and credit card firms process medical, financial and consumer data.
``Almost without exception, when it comes to privacy, companies are reactive,'' Smith said. ``They drift along and make policy only when some crisis occurs. It could be a consumer backlash or a legal challenge, but at that point they react with task forces and committees and they create policies.''
What most concerns the handful of privacy experts around the country is that legislative policy-making is just as haphazard and reactive.
Companies can sell data about what products people buy, where they vacation and where they invest. But disclosing what videos people rent was made illegal after the rentals of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork were made public during his unsuccessful 1987 confirmation hearings.
In about 20 states, drivers' license records are public information. This is how direct marketers can know how tall people are, how much they weigh, whether they wear glasses and, in many states, what their Social Security numbers are.
California stopped selling its motor vehicle records after a stalker used them to find and murder actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989.
There are many legitimate uses for this information. If driving records were private, for instance, school bus companies might not be able to check the driving records of job applicants.
But policy toward what should be available and what should not is all but non-existent, privacy advocates say. In Europe, by contrast, there are laws that precisely detail how the technology can be used.
Increasingly, the home is another area of concern. When the age of interactive television arrives in perhaps five years, what policy should there be governing how data on viewing or shopping habits can be used? It's a question to which scholars, public policy-makers and businesses have given little thought.
by CNB