Data mining ethics and misc

[CJstudent]

Hi! I am a student doing a group project on data mining as it relates to the criminal justice and national security arena. My specific area is concerned with the ethics of data mining. My group and I were wondering if anyone could direct us or give us information as to tools used, why data mining is used, the problems concerning the ethics of data mining...
We have found some great information out there but in coming across this site I became curious as to whether anyone in the profession of data mining or in a career that uses data mining could give us some insight or direction that we might not have thought about. It would really be appreciated. Thanks!

[TimManns]

Well, in terms of ethics and potential for mis-use of data mining....I reckon everywhere. I think every arena has the possibilty for mis-use of data and ethical debate.

It needn't be the obvious cases like;
- local law enforcement. In UK for example some investigative police departments use data mining to find patterns in repeatitive crime and overlay this with geography (criminals usually stick to their own backyards...)
- CIA -type stuff. Telephony tapping, association and link analysis of mobile numbers etc to track criminal social networks.

Data mining might be abused a lot closer to home. For example, nearly everyone has a mobile phone these days. The telco company records all the calls that you make (outbound), and all the numbers that call you (inbound) for some historical period. It is illegal (in my country), and some would say unethical, to actually check for specific numbers dialed (say to a competitor company or service). We are not allowed (but could easily) use specific customer data to that degree.

We are allowed to do things such as see roughly what time of the day they make calls, to how many different people, on average for how long, using sms or voice etc. Then offer services or discounts to better suit the customer's use of our services. Many companies do this type of stuff, but there is a fine line between that and intrusion of privacy - and its too easy to cross these days.

Cheers

Tim