Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!utcsri!utegc!lamy From: lamy@utegc.UUCP Newsgroups: can.general Subject: Re: University-wide Finger Message-ID: <8707241453.AA03690@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> Date: Fri, 24-Jul-87 10:53:28 EDT Article-I.D.: ephemera.8707241453.AA03690 Posted: Fri Jul 24 10:53:28 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 12:06:44 EDT References: <3601@watvlsi.waterloo.edu> <1473@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <1051@water.waterloo.edu> Distribution: can Organization: University of Toronto, AI group Lines: 26 Checksum: 55264 In article <9903@orchid.waterloo.edu> rbutterworth@orchid.waterloo.edu (Ray Butterworth) writes: >I have never understood why so many Canadians are paranoid about >identity numbers. I would find life much simpler if my SIN, my >[...] >It would make things a lot easier for everyone (except for >illegal immigrants, welfare fakes, tax evaders, library book >thiefs, wanted criminals, etc.). Correlation of huge databases would be greatly facilitated by unique IDs. This raises interesting questions wrt the presumption of innocence that underlies our legal system. While it is easy to see why correlating people who get UI with people who are dead and people with jobs is probably a valid use, there are more dangerous situations. For example, a recent case involved a US government agency that was correlating phone records with a list of prominent Washington reporters, in an effort to stop unwanted leaks (source: Time magazine, issue on the 200th birthday of the American Constitution). But the battle may already be lost. The junk mail I get is so nicely targeted that I sometimes feel there is not too much an ad agency does not know about me (age, sex, profession, money I made, when I last changed my car, marital status, what kind of house, what kind of neighbourhood, and so on). Jean-Francois Lamy lamy@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet) AI Group, Dept of Computer Science lamy@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400) University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!lamy