Large-scale collection, correlation, and inference from consumer data.
Company Data Mining
A guest ID links all purchase history, coupons, surveys, web visits, and customer service calls. Companies use this to infer personal attributes and target advertising accordingly.
Examples:
- Target infers pregnancy status from purchase patterns and adjusts advertising accordingly.
Government Data Mining
- Harder to restrict than private-sector mining.
- Often occurs without public announcement; some programs are intentionally secret.
- Erroneous conclusions from faulty data are difficult to correct once embedded in government records.
Privacy-Preserving Data Mining
Removing overtly identifying data is insufficient; re-identification from remaining fields is often possible.
Data perturbation adds noise to data, limiting privacy risk without significantly impacting aggregate analysis. Correlation and aggregation remain reliable on perturbed data.