Information You Can Learn About Someone from the Open Web

Information You Can Learn About Someone from the Open Web

Data Mining I – Direct Search

People concerned about the potential for “data mining” on the internet are referring to at least two different sorts of analysis. Some are referring to searches about a person. Others are referring to statistical inferences about a person.

Direct linkage between person and information

In the first instance, the data mining concern is that a determined researcher can find out a tremendous amount about another person with nothing more than access to the internet. Without purchasing access to data and without possessing any passwords, you might find out a wide array of information about a single person. Some of this information might be embarrassing to the individual, make the person susceptible to identity theft or fraudulent approaches. Available information includes:

  • Name variants
  • Nicknames
  • Middle initial
  • Address
  • Telephone number
  • Family members
  • Particularly spouse
  • Sometimes children
  • Age
  • Athletes ages listed for certain events
  • Religion
  • Charity board members (activity participants)
  • Minutes of PTA or school board meetings
  • Education
  • Alumni lists
  • Reunion sites
  • Bios for presentations or articles
  • Political opinions
  • Blogs
  • Bulletin boards
  • Articles
  • Medical conditions
  • Comments/questions to medical websites
  • Email address
  • Some business affiliations/information
  • Talks
  • Staff listings
  • Prior positions/prior employers
  • Professional licenses
  • discipline
  • Board positions/ownership
  • Real estate ownership
  • Possible affiliates
  • People sharing address or phone number
  • People leaving in adjacent addresses
  • Photo

Hypothetical Scenarios

To my knowledge, none of the following scenarios are in practice today. They are entirely the work of my imagination. However, these are the sorts of things that I’ve heard people worry about:

  • A person has been nominated to be a federal judge; the person must undergo a background investigation as part of the process. The background investigator searches the internet and discovers that the person has the office next door to an abortion clinic. This was not observed visually on visits to the person because the abortion clinic’s door is unmarked. A conservative member of Congress becomes aware of the information, infers that the person is sympathetic to abortion rights and scuttles the proposed appointment.
  • A multi-agency task force working crimes against children is investigating allegations regarding a number of people, all of whom are alleged to be soliciting minors over the internet. After the law enforcement officers establish that they have met the lowest legal threshold and have the right to begin a preliminary investigation, an analyst researches these people on the internet. Just by “Googling” the names, the analyst discovers that one individual has been posting medication questions to an internet AIDS bulletin board. The law enforcement officers decide to focus their investigations on that individual because they believe there’s a heightened urgency.
  • A person applies for a job as a school teacher. The local district determines that the individual has the required teaching certificate and experience. One member of the interviewing committee just doesn’t feel quite right about the applicant and decides to look on the internet. The committee member discovers that the applicant was previously a practicing lawyer whose license was suspended; the person had repeatedly failed to file cases for clients before the statute of limitations ran out. There was nothing in the application process that would have required the applicant to reveal the information, however the committee member forwards the information to all of the other members and proposes that the job offer be withdrawn.