Computerized shopping, mailing, banking, information and surveillance services in the home are the most massive threat ever to privacy, according to a study to be released today.
The report, commissioned by the Transport and Communications department of the Ontario government, urges companies providing such services to adopt legally-binding privacy codes to protect customers whose homes are, or soon will be, computer-scanned as often as every eight seconds.
Failing quick, voluntary self-regulation by the companies, the report says federal regulators should act to control the use of data automatically flowing from homes into commercial computers.
The report by University of Western Ontario privacy specialist Dr. David Flaherty says nothing more than goodwill now prevents cablevision and phone companies from giving away or selling the information. The list of potential recipients includes the police, credit agencies, salesmen, fundraisers or special interest groups.
As part of his year-long study, Flaherty surveyed public attitudes toward privacy. Most people questioned in 210 households ranked privacy protection as more important than nuclear proliferation, freedom of speech or freedom of the press.
The study concentrated on the impact of new services offered by cablevision companies. Computer- ized security services, which continuously and automatically electronically check “wired” homes for robbers, fire and other emergencies have been introduced in Ottawa and Victoria, and much more elaborate two-way systems are envisioned for the future.
Flaherty says videotex services, such as Telidon, being tested by the government and phone companies are equally threatening. The most sophisticated pilot project is called Grassroots. which will make electronic banking available later this year to 1,500 subscribers, mostly in Western Canada.
Flaherty says the services will transform the current “one-way electronic highway” of phone and television into a two-way street, with information flowing both into and out of homes. “And when that happens, the electronic highway will be easy prey for a modern electronic highwayman.”
Vast amounts of information can be automatically collected by the computers. The computer could compile, for example, lists of everyone who subscribes electronically to information from gay rights groups or political parties.
At Flaherty’s urging, the Canadian Cable Television Association recently formed a committee to draft a 10-point privacy code. That, along with Flaherty’s concerns, will be presented to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission this fall, at the same time as a number of proposals for two-way electronic services.
- Margaret Munro, Southam News
August 11, 1983
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7KMyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Bu8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=951%2C5010