Too much information
A Times EditorialThe FDLE insists that privacy concerns about its computer database system are overblown, but there is reason to be apprehensive.
Published May 10, 2005
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Mark Zadra tries to make the latest revelations surrounding its computer database system, formerly known as the Matrix, sound innocuous. He claims that the request for bids from data-aggregating firms to provide FDLE with access to databases of commercially available information on most Americans is nothing different from what law enforcement may currently obtain without a subpoena or court order. But there are reasons to be concerned.
The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, or Matrix, was initially promoted as a law enforcement tool that would give police faster access to public records held by states around the country. But as the program developed, it became clear that commercial databases would be scoured as well.
Zadra claims that the kinds of information obtained from these private databases are such things as current addresses, Social Security numbers and birth dates - information to which law enforcement already is entitled. He says that even if a database included health records, personal financial details or what magazines someone receives, investigators would be barred from freely accessing that information. What isn't clear, however, is where the personal information provided police is coming from. It could very well be that a current address was obtained from a document - such as a magazine subscriber list - that the agency would not normally be able to see without a court order. Zadra won't say what type of data are being searched.
Another reason the public has been skeptical of FDLE's assurances is that the company that developed the Matrix, Seisint Inc., also provided the federal government with 120,000 names of potential terrorist suspects it found through data-mining - an unproven technique of analyzing vast amounts of demographics on all of us looking for suspicious patterns.
Zadra claims that data-mining is not part of the system used by Florida. But the Seisint disclosures and other privacy worries led a number of states to abandon the program, and federal financing was allowed to run out in April. When the Matrix pilot program began, 13 states participated; now only Florida and Ohio are using the software.
The request for bids, says Zadra, is an attempt to find a better and cheaper company to provide essentially the same services, not expand the kind of information available. He insists that privacy concerns are overblown. Are they? When billions of personal records on nearly every American are instantly available to police in a couple of keystrokes, there is reason for caution and concern.