Privacy, Government Information, and Technology
本文探讨了现代政府收集公民个人信息的需求与隐私保护之间的平衡，回顾了美国计算机化政府记录系统引发的政策辩论，以及1974年《隐私法》确立的信息使用原则和法律救济途径。
All modern governments collect detailed personal information on citizens and residents, including information on financial activities, criminal charges, government subsidized loans, employment status and earnings, and, increasingly, medical treatments and costs. Such information is needed by governments to administer vast arrays of social welfare programs as well as more traditional activities of revenue collection and maintenance of law and order. Democratic governments balance their uses of personal information with requirements to be open to the people and accountable to legislatures and law, as well as with legal protections of individual privacy. In the United States, the computerization of government record systems, which began in the 1960s, drew new attention to tensions between individuals' interests in the privacy of personal information and the federal government's collection and use of such information. Policy debates within Congress, executive agencies, and other interested groups centered on questions about the meaning of privacy, the impact of computers, and the formalization of relations between individuals and agencies. In 1974, Congress passed the Privacy Act (88 Stat. 1896; 5 U.S.C. 552a) codifying principles of fair information use which agencies must meet in handling personal information, as well as rights for individuals who are the subjects of that information. To ensure agency compliance with these principles, the Act enables individuals to bring civil and criminal suits if information is willfully and intentionally handled in violation of the Act. Now, at least two generations of information technology have become available to federal agencies, offering new means for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of data collection and program management, but also undermining the goal of the Privacy Act to protect individuals by controlling information about them.