Why It Matters: A Story From Sweden

I ended my Dinner With General Alexander post with the observation that when the Government collects data, regardless of the stated rationale, there will inevitably be mission creep that sees the data being used in new, unintended ways and that it always leads to abuse. If that sounded hyperbolic to you, consider this article from Rick Falkvinge over at Falkvinge & Co. on Infopolicy.

Sweden, in 1975, started requiring that hospitals take a blood sample from every newborn child. This was specifically to test for and track Phenylketonuria, a genetic disease that can have severe consequences. The samples were preserved to enable research into the disease. Taken is isolation, this seems like a perfectly reasonable program. Help research into a dangerous genetic disease and track those that are susceptible to it. Unfortunately, the iron law of data abuse had a perfectly predictable outcome.

As early as 1998 the police began accessing this data to facilitate investigation of criminal cases. As I’ve said before, I’m an American and view these things through American eyes but this would be blatantly illegal here. It’s very hard to compel DNA from a suspect in America. I would imagine that Europe, with its more robust privacy laws, would have similar restrictions. Yet here we are with the Government seizing DNA data from individuals who had no opportunity to object to its collection.

If the data is there, anyone with an interest in exploiting it will demand access. The only way to prevent this is to prevent the collection of the data in the first place. We are, of course, way beyond that now. Our only recourse is to demand that the Government stop collecting it and destroy what it already has.

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