Emergent Predictions
- By the end of 2005, we will have had a month with at least 30 disclosures of serious security breaches, making private information about people available.
- At least 10 of these breaches will involve data which organizations are required by law to store and protect.
- This will cause a set of Congressional hearings, in which the current data retention standards will be questioned. No reduction in government-mandated data collection will result.
The ‘success’ of the California law SB1386 is likely to become a touchstone for future laws. But this is unfounded. For every success in public lawmaking there are a dozen failures. Further, if there is any success in SB1386, it seems to show that there is no need for a federal law – the states did it by themselves, and indeed, one state did it for the rest! Finally, we haven’t exactly done the analysis to show that SB1386 is a net benefit – what are the downsides? What are the unintended consequences?