[Data-modeling] Privacy, public figures, etc

[Tom Morris]

Kirrily Robert <kirrily at metaweb.com> wrote:

> A while ago I signed up for online banking and, as online banking systems tend
> to do, it asked me not only for a password but for some additional question/answer
> pairs to help me sort things out if I lost or forgot that password.  I looked at the list
> of suggested questions, and saw things like:
>
>  - Mother's maiden name
>  - Your high school's mascot
>  - Town where you were born

You need to find a new bank.  Any financial institution that is
suggesting the use of mother's maiden name as a "secret" in this day
and age doesn't have the least clue about security.  Is that the type
of institution you want looking after your money?

>  So there's been a bit of discussion around the place about changing the "Person"
> topic to be less privacy-invading, and moving some of the properties to a new type
> called "Public person", which we can use for well-known public figures and famous
> people whose privacy is, let's face it, already pretty well invaded.  That way we can
> record the weight of professional athletes or celebrities with eating disorders, or the
> religion of Presidents of the USA, or the genealogy of historical figures, without doing
> the same to ordinary people like you or me.

In addition to differences in handling public figures, there are also
differences in privacy
expectations between living and dead subjects as well as differences
due to the data
privacy laws of various countries.  Many countries' laws are much more
restrictive than
the U.S.'s.

Tom