Washington, D.C. - A new General Accounting Office (GAO) report details the extensive use of data mining activities by the federal government as a tool to help detect terrorist threats and an instrument to improve government efficiency. The report, "Data Mining: Federal Efforts Cover a Wide Range of Uses," (GAO-04-548)(www.gao.gov) was requested by U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) following the controversy surrounding the use of personal information and data mining by the Terrorism Information Awareness program at the Department of Defense last year. The report is the first of two reports requested by Senator Akaka to examine data mining activities in the federal government and the privacy implication of those activities. The second report will provide greater detail on selected data mining activities which use personal information in order to gain further understanding of the privacy implications for this activity and possible recommendations for protecting Americans' civil liberties.
While there is no universally accepted definition of data mining, for the purposes of this study, the term is defined as the application of database technology and techniques - such as statistical analysis and modeling - to uncover hidden patterns and subtle relationships in data and to infer rules that allow for the prediction of future results. Based on this definition, 52 of the 128 agencies surveyed by the GAO are using or are planning to engage in data mining, resulting in 199 data mining activities either planned or operational in the federal government.
Of the 199 data mining activities in the federal government, 122 activities involve the use of personal information, 46 of which involve sharing personal information between agencies. The personal information used in these data mining activities includes credit reports, credit card transactions, student loan application data, bank account numbers, and taxpayer identification numbers. "I am disturbed by the high number of data mining activities in the federal government involving personal information. The federal government collects and uses Americans' personal information and shares it with other agencies to an astonishing degree, raising serious privacy concerns, " Senator Akaka noted. "I doubt if the American public realizes the extent to which the federal government collects and uses their personal information and the degree to which their information is shared with other agencies."
GAO also found 54 data mining programs which used information from the private sector - 36 of which involve personal information.
"I am concerned by the number of federal data mining activities that use private sector data. We do not know the quality and accuracy of the information, whether individuals have access to the information to correct inaccuracies, and whether individuals gave consent for their private information to be shared with the federal government. There must be policies and safeguards in place to ensure that the privacy rights of Americans' are not being eroded," Senator Akaka said. "It is time that we review agency practices and existing law to ensure that the privacy rights of individuals are not violated through the development of new technology.
"This breadth of data mining activities across the federal government involving personal information demonstrates the need for policies and safeguards, similar to those recommended by the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee, to apply to data mining activities and data mining-like activities government-wide."
The report found that data mining activities are also used to improve agency service or performance. Additional uses include: detecting fraud, waste, and abuse; analyzing scientific and research information; managing human resources; detecting criminal activities or patterns; and analyzing intelligence and detecting terrorist activities. Examples of such uses include the Department of Education's Title IV Identity Theft Initiative focusing on identity theft involving student loans and the Veterans Benefits Administration's monitoring fraud in the compensation and pension benefits for veterans. "While legitimate privacy concerns are obvious given the breadth of data mining activities, this report also shows that not all data mining is necessarily invasive or violative of an individuals civil liberties," Akaka said.
