Fair Credit Reporting Act and Privacy Act

[Tim Philp]

On Fri, 9 Feb 1996, Bill Stewart wrote:

> How are you going to _know_ that a "violation" occurred, if company A
> tells company B your address or favorite liquor?  Only by having access
> to the records of both companies.  Getting that through the courts,
> for only the parts of their information relevant to you, is better than
> blanket permission for the government to rummage through their files,
> but after the first lawsuit lets investigators in, everything they've got
> is clam bait anyway.  It's still major privacy violation - for the company
> whose machines are being violated, and for the non-suing individuals
> whose data is also on those machines.  

I agree that this is a problem but I still feel that an individual should 
have more rights than a corporation. It is true that there is a 
possiblity of the owners of the corporation may have their rights 
diminished, but you have to balance this against the protection that they 
get by being incorporated. Either the files belong to the corporation or 
they belong to the owner or shareholders. If they belong to the 
corporation, the individual wins the rights contest. If I follow your 
scenario, one need only form a corporation to avoid responsibility for 
any violations of the law.
I wish to reiterate here and now, that I am NOT advocating government 
access to computers or files. I am simply suggesting that data 
corporations should be required to take responsibility for the data that 
is in their care. If they do not take such care, they should be subject 
to sanction.

Regards, 
Tim Philp