May 10, 2007
Computers Need To Learn To Forget
Harvard Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, from the JFK School of Government argues that too much information is being retained by computers, and that our machines need to learn how to forget things as humans always have. He writes in his paper, “if whatever we do can be held against us years later, if all our impulsive comments are preserved, they can easily be combined into a composite picture of ourselves. He notes that we are becoming increasingly anxious about “how our words and actions may be perceived years later and taken out of context, the lack of forgetting may prompt us to speak less freely and openly."
He believes this continuous collecting and retention of data is creating a panopticon in which everything is being watched. In contrast to having an omnibus data protection legislation, Dr. Mayer-Schönberger proposes a combination of law and software to ensure that most data is "forgotten" by default. A law would decree that "those who create software that collects and stores data build into their code not only the ability to forget with time, but make such forgetting the default." Essentially, this means that all collected data is tagged with a new piece of metadata that defines when the information should expire.
In practice, this would mean that iTunes could only store buying data for a limited time, a time defined by law. Should customers explicitly want this time extended, that would be fine, but people must be given a choice. Even data created by users—digital pictures, for example—would be tagged by the cameras that create them to expire in a year or two; pictures that people want to keep could simply be given a date 10,000 years in the future.
Mayer-Schönberger’s goal is to help us avoid becoming digital pack rats, and he believes that we need to curtail the amount of time that companies and governments can collate data about users and citizens "just because they can." Whenever there's a real need to do so, data can be retained, but setting the default expiration date forces organizations to decide if they truly do need to retain that much data forever.
Dr. Mayer-Schönberger’s Paper: (pdf)
Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing