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17 Chitty's L.J. 90 (1969)
Privacy and Data Bank

handle is hein.journals/chittylj17 and id is 92 raw text is: Privacy and Data Bank KENNETH CHENG, Ph.D. The author is Director, Ontario Statistical Centre, Department of Treasury and Economics of the Province of Ontario. Introduction Progress in computer technology has made it possible to store, manipulate, and retrieve, a great amount of data in a very short time at a reasonable cost. This capability of computer has stimulated development of many information systems and data banks. Some of these data banks are for a specialized or a single purpose, and some are aimed at broader use or for general purposes. Collection of information from different de- partments and organizations involves many legal problems, some concerned with authority to collect, or the power for access to files of the government and private organizations, and others regarding the transfer and release of information to other organizations, indivi- duals or general public. Among the legal issues related to data bank, the invasion of privacy brought forth intense controversy among congressmen and officials in Washington, in connection with the establish- ment of a National Data Centre. According to Congressman Cornelius E. Gal- lagher, In my opinion, the particular effect of the collection and correlation of all this information in one place, signifies a radically new kind of threat to the Right of Privacy, and consequently, a new threat to man's last dimension of freedom and dignity. On the other hand, it also can be argued that the right to privacy should not be left to disorganized and fractionalized information sys- tems, but an orderly, coordinated and rational system founded on a sound legislation must be set up to ensure privacy. The threat to privacy through establishment of a large scale data bank or information sys- tem, is of considerable importance to each individual in a democratic society, and the issue bears equal significance in the U.S.A., as well as in Canada. Since its problems, however, are universal to some extent for any type of data bank which involves transfer of files regarding individual person and organization, and since the willing- ness to provide information from a person or an organization is the fundamental require- ment of a data bank, this paper tries to bring into focus, some of the concepts which may be useful for dealing with the problem of invasion of privacy by data bank. Privacy and Commercial Data Bank Development of a data bank is not limited to government, and a number of commercial data banks are currently in operation. It is learned in the U.S.A. that a computerized data centre is now planned which will report the credit status of any one of more than 50 million people within ninety seconds. Com- puterized data storage is now fairly popular among banks, credit card organizations, life insurance companies, department stores and many others. Public institutions also have fol- lowed the trend, and it is learned that a num- ber of hospitals and boards of education are in the process of converting into automatic data processing. Computerization of existing files creates little threat to privacy. The problem begins to bear significance, however, once the information exchange takes place between various data centres, and the data on an individual are assembled into a single file. Imagine for a moment that banks got together to exchange files, next life insurance companies joined the group, car insurance companies, and then the computer utility firms handling physician's 90 Chitty's Law Journal March, 1969