Be Careful What You Wish For: 'Privacy Protection' Now Used As An Excuse To Cut Off Investigative Journalists From Key Database

from the tradeoffs dept

We've been explaining for a long time that many people don't really understand "privacy." Privacy is a tradeoff not a "thing." Assuming that privacy is a thing -- and that "it" must be protected -- leads to some bad results. Lexis Nexis has a tool called Trace IQ, that is widely used by investigative journalists to find out information about people -- including their addresses and phone numbers. Some people might argue that just addresses and phone numbers should be kept private, but it really wasn't that long ago that such information wasn't just widely available to the public, but every six months or so a giant yellow-covered book was thrown in front of our doors with listings of everyone's phone number and address in your geographic region. Remember that?

However, Lexis Nexis is now cutting investigative journalists off from this service because "privacy."

A Cardiff-based company is banning journalists from accessing a powerful database of names, phones numbers and addresses, in a move the Centre for Investigative Journalism says is symptomatic of the way "popular anxieties about privacy" are gagging investigative reporting.

Lexis Nexis isn't explaining exactly why it's doing this, but various journalism organizations think that it has to do with the new focus on privacy and new laws like the GDPR:

The Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, James Harkin, said the industry has come under threat from legislation in recent times, pointing to the Investigatory Powers Act passed in 2016 and the proposed Espionage Act.

But Harkin said Lexis Nexis' decision to shut out journalists from Trace IQ shows investigative journalism can also be gagged by the new "popular anxieties about privacy".

"In many ways concerns about the Data Protection Act, and concerns about data protection more generally, are more subtle and more insidious, and more directly relevant to the day-to-day work of journalists," Harkin told BuzzFeed News.

Now, I know that some will think that it's no fair that journalists had access to this information in the first place, but those are likely the same people who were just recently complaining in our comments about how awful it is that some in the media publish stories without first talking to everyone involved. One way that you talk to everyone involved is getting the information necessary to talk to them. And things like TraceIQ make that possible. Or did.

Meanwhile, it appears that TraceIQ will still exist for other types of users: debt collectors. Apparently, it's fine for them to get access to this information, but it's not okay for reporters doing their jobs. Yes, privacy is important, but we have to learn that "protecting privacy" means recognizing the appropriate situations and cases where information can be accessed and shared, and recognizing what the tradeoffs in those decisions are. It does not mean that we should cut people off entirely from accessing data. Unless they're debt collectors.

Filed Under: database, information, journalism, privacy, trace iq
Companies: lexis nexis