Privacy and digital mosaics : lessons from pollution control

Digital Mosaic Pollution (DMP) arises when bits of information originally gathered for other purposes escape their original boundaries. The metaphor of a mosaic implies that bits of information, each not valuable by itself, when pieced together can create a clear, or distorted, picture of a person, depending on the collector's aims. The pollution metaphor explains how the effluent data becomes available for other purposes, including unintended and unwanted aggregation into personal digital mosaics, without consent or even awareness. Privacy invasion is an unwelcome byproduct. Much like pollution, unwanted data exposures are difficult or impossible to make private again. To gauge societal damage from information pollution, we consider privacy from a variety of academic perspectives: ethics, economics, law and regulation. The pollution analogy focuses regulatory policy and legal strategies for protecting privacy on the creators of Digital Mosaic Pollution where it can be most efficient and effective.