Importance of Data Protection in the Information Age

Abstract

Governments and other human consortia have for years gathered important and personal information on people. While much of this information was recorded in relatively primitive filing systems, its mere existence made the concept of privacy virtually non-existent. For example, government officials of the Roman Empire maintained an extensive system of taxation records on its subjects throughout its sphere of rule. Taxation records, while recorded by scribes on papyrus scrolls, were surprisingly complete. Taxpayers were identified through Rome’s census-taking activities. Real and potential enemies of the empire as well as troublemakers were sometimes identified in the census records. The subjects of these records included Jesus of Nazareth, the disciples of Jesus, the followers of the slave leader Spartacus, and other political and religious activists and also those senators, local potentates, tax collectors (publicani) and Roman governors whose loyalty to the Emperor became suspect for one reason or another.

’We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.’

— Justice William O. Douglas, Osborn v. U.S., 1966