Enemy of the State of Privacy

In the 1998 movie, "Enemy of the State", actor Will Smith's personal privacy is invaded by his own government using high technology devices planted in his home, office and even on his person. Sounds far fetched? The technology does exist to do everything portrayed in the movie and much more. The only difference between the movie and real life is that unlike the movie where government agents physically entered the home and office of Smith, this is not necessary to breach the privacy of any citizen. If you are like most individuals, you have unknowingly permitted yourself to be tracked, documented and your privacy breached in exchange for living a life of convenience. When you sign applications and agreements for your credit cards, bank accounts, vehicle leases and mortgages have you really read the fine print? The fine print in most cases states that you give your permission to have your personal information collected by, "exchanged" with, and even sold to third parties throughout the course of your business dealings. Do you belong to a reward points or discount program? The fine print of the agreement may allow program operators to track your spending habits (where and what you buy), allow them to share and even sell this information to third parties and put you on mailing and telephone solicitation lists of companies you've never heard of. While this may seem more of an inconvenience than an invasion of privacy consider the case of Mr. X. Mr. X had signed up for a reward points program linked to his credit card. This meant everywhere and every time he used his credit card he would get points for all of his transactions to be used towards vacations, gasoline and a new car. Mr. X was in line for a promotion with his firm, a major multi-national corporation. As part of the selection process he would have to submit to a background check and security clearance. The firm conducting the check performed what is known as a character lifestyle check and through their sources were able to obtain a record of Mr. X's spending habits over a two year period as documented by the reward points program he had enrolled in. It was noted by an entry on his spending record that he had on one occasion frequented a small retail establishment whose operator had been convicted of child pornography. As a result, Mr. X was not given a clearance for the promotion and was later released from the firm's employ. Further investigation found that the establishment in question was a convenience store chain where Mr. X purchased a box of chocolates for his wife's birthday. This was the one and only documented time he had entered this establishment. Similar tracking of individuals is also done via their personal computers. In this case, most individuals are all too quick to breeze through the Terms of Service posted on websites and in software and as a result surrender their privacy all too easily. People who do any form of online commerce from ordering merchandise off of a website, to online banking and stock trading are often tracked by having small files placed on their computers without their knowledge, known as cookies to gather and track personal and personal preference information. By accepting the Terms of Service users agree to have the cookies placed on their computer. Although the word "cookie" may not be specifically used in the text of the document. Cookies, also known in the computer security world as Spyware may provide information about the computer owners name, address, telephone number and e-mail address all culled from information provided by the users themselves when they first registered their computer operating system and software. Additional information may be obtained on the type of software and computer used, websites visited, Internet searches performed and total time spent at the computer. As well, Internet Service Providers and e-mail providers may also keep tabs on users by monitoring account activity. Account activity of this nature would include received and sent e-mail addresses, websites visited and an inventory of all of the software installed on the computer. Information obtained from the use of Spyware and the monitoring of account activity are routinely justified in the corporate world as processes designed to selectively send specific advertising offers that users may be interested in based on their "tracked" previous purchases or activity and to ensure the quality of services delivered to users by monitoring user access activity. However, information accessed by or sold to the wrong hands could be devastating to an individual. An example of this occurred when Ms. Y, a grade school teacher had her name come up on an e-mail mailing list associated with a contraband prescription drugs operation that had been seized during a raid. Although it had been later found that Ms. Y, like many others on the list were simply targeted victims of a mass e-mail solicitation list, the fact that information from her e-mail account provider indicated the receipt of a message from the operation and a sent reply message that could have raised further suspicion. However, given that the e-mail activity log did not store the body of the message and Ms. Y's explanation of the reply simply being a request to be removed from the mailing list seemed credible given no other communiqu