In a prior post I wrote about NSA spying on citizens and amassing private data on the general population for use when needed to catch some bad guys. I concluded that if we are not allowed to know what is being recorded about us, what is being retained in a history file and when and how it is all being used then at the very least we have a right to know what our own master identifying number is that uniquely specifically identifies us in the NSA data base. We have a right to know our number or whatever hash the NSA uses.
I touched on the same idea in another blog entry and related it to a real time census of every citizen in the USA. Who they all are and where they are at in real time. Future stuff of course but the trend is going there. Just pick a year when it will arrive. Soon, I think. A graph would show trending progress toward that point if somehow data could be obtained today describing just how many persons could be identified today in real time to exactly who they are and where they are at as a "thing" in the internet of things.
NSA is recording and retaining data on everyone. Since their hands were slapped for doing that do Big Business that has that data that the NSA used to tap into covertly or "by agreement to get. Now the NSA does not have to tap into it, just have Big Business continue to retain it all and get a warrant to look at it. Logically there must be some key by which to search all that data when the time comes to get the bad guy. The key is something like the bad guys name, once it is known. Just like we do a Google search on a name. Look at what the search returns, especially for common names.
Getting the NSA to reveal to us our own unique master identifying number by passing a law to make it a right of all citizens to simply know the number but none of the data related to it is not going to happen.
This is where HTTPa (HTTPaccountability) as proposed by Tim Berners-Lee has amazing speculative possibilities. I see it like this: Privacy is an eroding right. There are too many powerful institutional factors that gain money and/or power to control though obtaining private information through emerging technology.
We know our personal institutional identifiers. Telephone numbers, bank account, SSN, etc. At Safeway they use my name as a personal identifier to thank me for shopping there. Mr. Last Name becomes an institutional point of sale identifier to personalize the transaction. The real identifier is the telephone number I use to get my Safeway Shopper discounts when I pay.
Personal identifiers abound!
What if I could choose my own unique master identifier, define what I consider private information about me related to that identifier and have the right to know that the privacy restrictions that I place on my own HTTPaccountability identifier are in fact being observed by those that I give personal privacy designated information to. At any time I could verify and validate that my private information is being protected and used as I have chosen.
In this case my unique master identifying number would not be assigned by the NSA. I would in effect tell the NSA what my master unique identifying designator is to which they must relate all private information to. My privacy rights no longer cover what can be known about me in the real world but how it can be used as first hand private information that I release or use by any subsequent entity that may legally obtain the use of any private information about me.
Kind of like a copyright on myself. I may patent myself and everything about me or I may choose to be open source or any combination of either extreme. I choose my own master identifier key to search at any time to discover who has data on me and that they are using it as authorized. If not they are breaking the Privacy Law and owe me according to the law or decision of a court.
Right to privacy is dying. Long live the right to know, in real time, at any time, who has private information about me and if they are using it in accordance with my right to determine what about me is private and how it may be used.
HTTPaccountability!
It puts the shoe on the other foot, the right foot.
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