580 Protection of Privacy

Balyard had stopped off at the local personnel office for the name of a representative American in the neighborhood. The personnel machines had considered the problem and ejected the card of E. R. B. Hagstrohm, who was statistically average in every respect save for the number of his initials: his age (36), his height (5'7"), his weight (148 lbs.), his years of marriage (11), his I.Q. (83), the number of his children (2: 1 m.9; 1 f.6), his car (3 yr. old Chev. 2 dr. sed.), the number of his bedrooms (2), his education There are two aspects to the issue of protection of data. We will try to cope with both of them in this chapter. The first, and commonly understood, aspect is that we wish to deny access to data to those people who do not have a right to access these data. This is also commonly referred as the protection of privacy for personal data and maintenance of security for governmental or corporate data. The second, but equally important, aspect of protection is that we have to guarantee access to all relevant data to those people who exercise their access privilege properly. This means that owners of databases also have the responsibility to protect the data entrusted to them. Part of this responsibility means that there has to be a reliable computer operation. The other aspect is that data has to be protected from exposure, vandalism, or alteration. 579 580 Protection of Privacy Some examples may help to define the scope of the protection problem. Individual Privacy In order to estimate the next month's operational cost at the Consolidated Iron Works, a program is written which uses personnel data to extrapolate costs from wages, normal working hours, and outstanding vacation days. Lucy Brown, who prepares the report, should not have access to the staff's psychiatric histories, which are kept on-line with the personnel data. Professional Privacy Fred Fierce, a manager of the Widget Division of Everything International Corporation, has access to all operational data of the Widget factory which have been collected into the corporate database. Fred is in personal competition with the manager, Shelley Smart, of the Gadget Division, since he feels a promotion is imminent. Should they have access to each other's data? How can we distinguish similar data from different sources? If we cannot guarantee that we can keep divisional data separate, there will …