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Comment on Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

thejml@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

On one hand, I absolutely abhor governmental blanket data collection and the storage of this data. Both from a personal privacy, independence and freedom point of view, and from a “you know they’ll just leak the data and then everyone will have it” standpoint.

On the flip side:

In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies

Any sane company or government would have already done this… not sharing data between agencies/silos is leads to inaccuracies, duplication of data and work (wasted time/money), additional complexity in data storage and gathering, plus it provides multiple attack surfaces for data breaches.

Also, I read that as “if one agency needs something they can ask the other one for it” which has likely been happening for centuries at this point and this is just another “Trump said we need to do what’s already happening so he can look smart and like he’s doing something besides golfing and accepting foreign bribes”.

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a4ng3l@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
They say sharing so it’s solely duplicating data everywhere, effectively increasing the attack surface…

And this would violate my favourite GDPR principle ; purpose based consent. I give my data to the healthcare body for handle reimbursement and I like it that way. No need for them to share that data with anyone else. Same for the tax guy: let him scrutinise the shit outa my incomes but that’s it, don’t share it with the fucking police or whoever else.

But yeah… this is a difficult topic even in a sane country. We’re talking USA here…

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AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I mean this is why you have different security clearances. Nobody working in the social security administration should have full access to my speeding tickets from 20 years ago, or find out if I was on Medicaid at some point in my life with a single click.

This is very different than making a formal documented request. It enables people to discriminate on information that they shouldn’t know in the first place, and keeps anyone from holding them accountable for it.

Not to mention, if it’s used the way other people have used it, it allows the government to discriminate against other people for just having a loose connection to somebody else.

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tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
If it wasn’t Trump I’d agree. However, getting Palantir involved sounds less like unifying databases than creating a social credit score-kind of system, complete with political opinions and other kinds of sensitive data

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floofloof@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Any sane company or government would have already done this

Only if they had no concern for people’s privacy, and no notion of compartmentalizing access to the data to prevent abuse and limit the impact of leaks.

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beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I think you’re right that this leads to increased efficiency. But in the case of the United States, we’re relying on a bit of inefficiency here to maintain freedom. I would suggest that there’s no difference between a dictatorship and an all-seeing government. Restricting the government is important in a free country, and making data on citizens difficult access is one of those restrictions we’ve been using.

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