The government should examine its own privacy practices before pointing a finger at the commercial sector, a report published Monday said.
"The Federal government is the largest collector and user of citizens' personal and private information," said Jim Harper, operator of Privacilla.org. "It's hard enough to control your personal information in the commercial world -- it's impossible to protect it in the governmental world."
While legislators debate information-privacy guidelines on Capitol Hill, few have criticized information sharing by government, Harper said.
A survey by Privacilla found that new government information-sharing programs were announced 47 times within the last 18 months, or a little more than once every two weeks.
Under the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act, government agencies must publish a notice in the Federal Register before sharing files containing citizens' personal information. But the Act only covers records involving federal benefits or federal personnel and excludes many more, including certain law enforcement and tax files.
The report comes a day ahead of a Federal Trade Commission workshop examining how businesses merge and exchange consumer information in Washington. The FTC should also examine how government collects, disperses and stores private citizens' data, Harper said.
"There's a huge amount of information-sharing going on that the public and policy makers don't have a grasp on," he said. "Government poses a greater threat to privacy than the private sector."
While sharing databases may streamline government and cut costs, it may also lead to questionable practices, privacy advocates argue.
Just look what happened when the Census Bureau shared information with the military during World War II and 112,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese origin were rounded up and dumped into internment camps.
A more recent example occurred in San Diego, where the County Board of Supervisors ruled that social services data could be shared with the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the purpose of locating undocumented immigrants, said Beth Given, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
"When you participate in a social services program you have absolutely no expectation that the data you provide for the health and well-being of your family is going to be given to a federal agency for the purpose of apprehending you," Givens said.
Although many of the worst-case scenarios resulting from data sharing are purely hypothetical, government attempts to compile comprehensive dossiers on citizens worry privacy advocates.
"What would happen if we were to enter a period of political, social and economic turmoil?" Givens said. "Is there any assurance that the data would not be used for social control purposes? I think the answer is no."
One key lawmaker also expressed concern about the government's privacy practices.
"If the government is going to monitor the information-sharing practices of the private sector, I'd like to know who's going to monitor the government," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX).
Last year, the House Government Reform Subcommittee gave the federal government a "D-minus" in computer security after a security breach left medical records at the Department of Veteran's Affairs wide open to hackers, and the General Accounting Office found that the government failed to live up to the FTC's privacy standards for commercial interests.
"When Big Brother is keeping tabs on you, it's natural to be a little concerned," said Armey. "But it's even worse when the government can't protect sensitive information from prying eyes."
