Fergie's Tech Blog

Internet Background Searches Awash in Incorrect Data

Bob Sullivan writes in The Red Tape Chronicles:

There's Bob Sullivan, the Red Tape Chronicles author. Then there's Bob Sullivan, who might be a bankrupt child molester with a brother who's a killer. One is flesh and blood, one is a computer creation. But in our digital age, who's to say which one is real? If perception takes on its own reality, certainly a computer creation can, too.

If you use the Internet today to conduct a background search on me, you might get the idea that I have been convicted of child molestation, and I have a close male relative who’s been convicted of manslaughter.

Let me assure you, neither is true. But let me try to convince you that there is a crisis at hand.

Databases are spinning out of control. Our country is awash in data that is secretly collected, inaccurately transcribed, sloppily connected. As they say in the business, there’s a lot of dirty data. But dirty data is being used to make important decisions that affect us. It decides who gets home loans and car loans, who gets credit cards, who gets insurance, even who goes to jail.

And sometimes, it's used to falsely taint people as potential child molesters and murderers.

posted by Fergie @ 5/03/2006 05:55:00 AM