{"id":1042,"date":"2009-05-25T03:24:13","date_gmt":"2009-05-25T11:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2009-05-25T09:14:45","modified_gmt":"2009-05-25T17:14:45","slug":"the-right-to-correlate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/?p=1042","title":{"rendered":"The Right To Correlate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Kearns’ comment in\u00a0Another Violent Agreement<\/a>\u00a0convinces me I've got to\u00a0apply the scalpel to the way\u00a0I talk about correlation handles.\u00a0 Dave writes:<\/p>\n

‘I took Kim at his word when he talked “about the need to prevent correlation handles and assembly of information across contexts…” That does sound like “banning the tools.”<\/p>\n

‘So I'm pleased to say I agree with his clarification of today:<\/p>\n

;”I agree that we must influence behaviors as well as develop tools… [but] there\u2019s a huge gap between the kind of data correlation done at a person\u2019s request as part of a relationship (VRM), and the <\/span>data correlation <\/span>I described in my post that is <\/span>done without a person\u2019s consent or knowledge<\/span>.<\/span>” (Emphasis added by Dave)’<\/p>\n

Thinking about this some more, it seems we might be able to use a delegation paradigm.<\/p>\n

The “right to correlate”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let's\u00a0postulate that only the parties to a transaction have the right to correlate the data in the transaction (unless it is fully anonymized).<\/p>\n

Then it would follow that\u00a0any two parties with whom an individual interacts would not by default have the right to correlate data they had each collected\u00a0in their separate\u00a0transactions.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the\u00a0individual\u00a0would have the right to organize and correlate her own data across all the parties with whom she interacts since she was party to all the transactions.<\/p>\n

Delegating the Right to Correlate<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we introduce the ability to delegate, then an individual could delegate her right<\/em> for two parties to correlate relevant data about her.\u00a0 For example, I could delegate to Alaska Airlines and British Airways the right to share information about me.<\/p>\n

Similarly,\u00a0if I were an optimistic person, I\u00a0could\u00a0opt to use\u00a0a service like that envisaged by Dave Kearns<\/a>, which “can discern our real desires from our passing whims and organize our quest for knowledge, experience and – yes – material things in ways which we can only dream about now.”\u00a0 The point here is that we would delegate the right to correlate to this service operating on our behalf<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Revoking the Right to Correlate<\/strong><\/p>\n

A key aspect of delegating a right is the ability to revoke that delegation.\u00a0 In other words, if the service to which I had given some set of rights became annoying or odious, I would need to be able terminate its right to correlate.\u00a0 Importantly, the right applies to correlation itself.\u00a0 Thus when the right is revoked, the data must no longer be linkable in any way.<\/p>\n

Forensics<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are cases where criminal activity is being investigated or proven where it is necessary for law enforcement to be able to correlate without the consent of the individual.\u00a0 This is already the case in western society and\u00a0it seems likely that new\u00a0mechanisms would not be required\u00a0in a world resepcting the Right to Correlate.<\/p>\n

Defining contexts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Respecting the\u00a0Right to Correlate would not\u00a0by itself\u00a0solve the Canadian Tire Problem<\/a> that started this thread<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0The thing that made the Canadian Tire human experiments most odious is that they correlated buying habits at the level of individual purchases\u00a0(our relations to Canadian Tire as a\u00a0store<\/em>)\u00a0 with\u00a0 probable behavior in paying off credit cards (Canadian Tire as a credit card issuer<\/em>).\u00a0 Paradoxically, someone's loyalty to the store could actually be used to deny\u00a0her credit.\u00a0 People who get Canadian Tire credit cards do know that the company is\u00a0in a position\u00a0to correlate all this information, but are unlikely to predict this counter-intuitive outcome.<\/p>\n

Those of us prefering mainstream credit card companies presumably don't have the same\u00a0issues at this point in time.\u00a0 They know where we buy but not what we buy (although there may be data sharing relationships with merchants that I am not aware of… Let me know…).<\/p>\n

So we have\u00a0come to the\u00a0the most important long-term problem:\u00a0 The Internet changes the rules of the game<\/strong> by making data correlation so very easy.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0potentially turns every\u00a0credit card company\u00a0into a data-correlating Canadian Tire.\u00a0 Are we looking at the Canadian Tirization of the Internet<\/em>?<\/p>\n

But do people care?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some will say that none of this matters because people just don't care about what is correlated.\u00a0 I'll discuss that\u00a0briefly in my next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are we looking at the Canadian Tirization of the Internet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,47,40,11,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}