Data Mining Protects You?

[JoePhilly]

6. That's why you "mine" it.

Let's take medical records. I don't want my records being passed around to everyone. You probably do not either.

However, its a very good idea for medical researchers to have access to my records, and your records, and the records of many others, so that they can look for patterns and trends associated with the efficacy of various treatments on individuals of different races, genders and ages.

From such analysis, on the upside, you can design better treatment protocols.

Or, on the down side, you could determine that certain patients can't be helped, and then assign them relative rankings via your death panels.

And so, before one can get into a discussion of the "value of data mining" one must understand that the collection of the data is not the issue.

The issue is how the data is used, how the analysis is structure, the kinds of questions that are asked, the extent to which those questions look at specific individuals or "aggregated data", and then what actions can, should, or should not, follow.