US Government Says That its Federal Data Mining Activities Fail to Protect Privacy

As recently reported by Associated Press, none of five US federal agencies that employ electronic data mining (including the FBI and the IRS) complied with all existing rules for the gathering and retention of information from citizens. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigating arm of the US Congress, conducted a limited study (testing only one data mining project from each agency) to determine how well the activity by each of the five sampled agencies complied with the Privacy Act, federal information security laws and government directives. For example, the GAO found only three of the agencies had prepared privacy impact assessments of their data programs, and none of those complied with all Office of Management and Budget requirements. In an earlier GAO survey in 2004, it was found that federal agencies were using or planning 199 data mining projects, including 122 that used personal information, including credit reports, credit card transactions, student loan application data, bank account numbers and taxpayer identification numbers. The Senator who had called for the study reacted by calling the result "a troubling trend". For a copy of the news item by the Associated Press, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?T273148CB To review the GAO survey report, see: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05866.pdf Summary by: The Editor