"[...] the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, [...] could soon access 20 billion pieces of information, all of them churned and sorted and analysed to predict who might one day turn into a terrorist. A new version, called the System to Assess Risk, or STAR, has just been launched using information drawn from both private and public databases. As most of the data have already been disclosed to third parties—airline tickets, job records, car rentals and the like—they are not covered by the American constitution's Fourth Amendment, so no court warrant is required.
In an age of global terror, when governments are desperately trying to pre-empt future attacks, such profiling has become a favourite tool. But although it can predict the behaviour of large groups, this technique is “incredibly inaccurate” when it comes to individuals, says Simon Wessely, a professor of psychiatry at King's College London. Bruce Schneier, an American security guru, agrees. Mining vast amounts of data for well-established behaviour patterns, such as credit-card fraud, works very well, he says. But it is “extraordinarily unreliable” when sniffing out terrorist plots, which are uncommon and rarely have a well-defined profile. [...] DNA is less reliable as a crime-detection tool than most people think. Although it almost never provides a false “negative” reading, it can produce false “positives”. Professor Allan Jamieson, director of the Forensic Institute in Glasgow, believes too much faith is placed in it. As he points out, a person can transfer DNA to a place, or weapon, that he (or she) has never seen or touched. [...] with the collection and centralisation of such vast amounts of data, the potential for abuse is huge and the safeguards paltry. [...] imagine what sort of state may emerge as the best brains of a secret police force—a force whose house culture treats all dissent as dangerous—perfect the art of gathering and using information on massive computer banks, not yellowing paper."
by
solon
2007-10-04 03:21
Überwachung
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Datenschutz
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Terrorismus
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Strafverfolgung
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Bürgerrechte
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Polizei
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Behörden
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USA
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Großbritannien
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Bruce Schneier
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Technologie
http://economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9867324
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simpy
Poor trade-off: Data mining harms civil liberties a lot but doesn't catch terrorists (Economist.com)
