Law Commons^™

Government Data Mining: The Need For A Legal Framework, Fred H. Cate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The article examines the government's growing appetite for collecting personal data. Often justified on the basis of protecting national security, government data mining programs sweep up data collected through hundreds of regulatory and administrative programs, and combine them with huge datasets obtained from industry. The result is an aggregation of personal data - the "digital footprints" of individual lives - never before seen. These data warehouses are then used to determine who can work and participate in Social Security programs, who can board airplanes and enter government buildings, and who is likely to pose a threat in the future, even …