[open-government] Legal issues of linked data-different from open data?

Fri Nov 2 13:44:24 UTC 2012

Hi María,

This is complex, and I don't claim to understand all of it

A key issue here relates to the extent to which linking data will raise legal confidentiality issues which do not arise in relation to disaggregated data.

In the area of national security, the mosaic theory has long been put forward (ie before powerful modern possibilities regarding electronically linked data), which says that even if certain pieces of information are not, individually, sensitive from a national security perspective, when you piece them together in the right mosaic, they do become sensitive. With modern linking technologies, we can create vastly more sophisticated mosaics, to continue the metaphor, and so the issue becomes far more 'threatening'. In recent times, I have more often seen the argument raised with respect to privacy (ie by mashing discrete databases you can penetrate through data anonymisation to link personal data to discrete individuals).

From a legal perspective, public bodies have a right, and in many cases an obligation, to protect sensitive data (for example private data). This extends to protecting interests (like privacy) even in the face of linking possibilities. So, a public body might refuse to release data on the basis that it could be mashed with another data set to reveal private data.

While there is undoubtedly some warrant for concern here, at the same time many openness advocates are suspicious of the wider claims made in this area, just as we have always been about national security based mosaic theories. The few studies I have seen on this are based on data where anonymisation was pretty self-evidently sub-standard. I myself had a discussion about this with a senior officer at Statistics Canada, which is the central government statistical agency which handles, among other things, the central census and holds vast amounts of very sensitive personal data. He indicated to me that they believe that the tools they current employ to anonymise data are robust and that they had never had a data breach through linking.

I'm not sure if this is what you were asking. 

Best wishes, Toby
___________________________________
Toby Mendel
Executive Director

Centre for Law and Democracy
toby at law-democracy.org
Tel:  +1 902 431-3688
Fax: +1 902 431-3689
www.law-democracy.org

On 2 Nov 2012, at 09:49, María Täng Palma wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Would anyone be able to shade some light on to what extent do the legal issues surrounding linked data differ from those of open data?
> 
> Thanks,
> María
> 
> -----------------
> 
> 
> mjpp7 at hotmail.com
> 
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