Impact of private data mining on personal privacy from agents of government

The balance of power between the individual and the government has been tipped in favor of the government. Recent advances in technology have led to the commoditization of personal information. The vast amounts of information collected and the ease with which they can be transferred to other parties has led to the rise of personal profile data mining. Due to Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s, the government can easily use or buy these profiles. Therefore, personal privacy from agents of government is being reduced due to data mining. This paper will explore the causes, implications, and potential solutions to this problem. It will explain the value of privacy and why it should be a value that is protected. Then, it will discuss the primary problems associated with data mining, particularly how those problems will impact individuals when the information obtained is used by the government. Next it will describe the current landscape of privacy protections. Finally, it will examine many proposed solutions using a stakeholder/method perspective model to comparatively analyze the solutions. With that analysis, it will describe the findings and implications of that analysis