A report on US government data mining indicates that the Total Information Awareness project, cancelled last year, is in some senses alive and well. The General Accounting Office lists a total of 199 projects, 122 of which use personal information and 54 of which use data from the private sector. The largest number of the projects have improvement in performance or service as a stated objective, but the GAO lists 14 "analyzing intelligence and detecting terrorist activities", and 15 "detecting criminal activities or patterns."
The report was requested by Democratic Senator Daniel Akaka following controversy around TIA, and Akaka comments: "I am disturbed by the high number of data mining activities in the federal government involving personal information. The federal government collects and uses Americans' personal information and shares it with other agencies to an astonishing degree, raising serious privacy concerns. I doubt if the American public realizes the extent to which the federal government collects and uses their personal information and the degree to which their information is shared with other agencies."
He added that the report's findings demonstrated the need for policies and safeguards such as those recommended earlier this month by the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee.
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