Data protectionA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWvia the use of the mobile phone. Th e evidence is
open to the scrutiny of individuals and agencies,
assisting all bodies, governmental or commer-
cial, involved in the surveillance of the public.
For example, data footprints are a vital aid to
targeted marketing, allowing companies to track
a user’s tastes and patterns of consumption. See
cryptography; tor.
Data mining In a 1998 publication Data Mining:
Staking a Claim on Your Privacy (IPC), Ann
Cavoukian, Ontario (Canada) Information and
Privacy Commissioner, defi nes data mining as
‘a set of automated techniques used to extract
buried or previously unknown pieces of infor-
mation from large data bases’. The Commis-
sioner states that ‘successful data mining makes
it possible to unearth patterns and relationship,
and then use this “new” information to make
proactive knowledge-driven business decisions’.
Th e process illustrates the penetrative power
of surveillance (see surveillance society)
made possible by computer networking. Exten-
sively used by governments and business, data
mining identifies patterns and trends in the
seemingly disparate activities of citizens; such
patterns and trends being used as indicators of
future policy and promotion. See journalism:
data journalism; privacy.
Data protection Th e increasing use of comput-
ers and sophisticated information technology
has greatly magnified the harm to individual
privacy that can occur from any collection,
storage or dissemination of personal infor-
mation, and many countries have legislated
against data abuse. Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
Luxembourg, West Germany and France have all
legislated to protect both the public and private
sectors of society. In the US and Canada, data
protection legislation only applies to the public
sector and compliance with it is voluntary.
In the UK, the report of the Lindop Commit-
tee (Report of the Committee on Data Protection,
1978) urged the need for individuals to have a
right of veto on what information was dissemi-
nated about them, and how this would operate in
the context of ‘the interests of the rest of society,
which include the effi cient conduct of industry,
commerce and administration’. Becoming law
in the UK in 1984, the data protection act
began operation in 1987 (see next entry).
cryptography, or what in modern parlance
is termed privacy transformation, can be
employed to ‘scramble’ data prior to storage in
order to guard against accidental or deliberate
disclosures of information. Th e problem here is
how the key or code to the scrambling processgovernment by having avenues of information,
other than that which is classified, closed to
offenders. However, the Notices have little
chance of combatting information, pictures or
fi lm posted on the internet. See censorship;
officials secrets act (uk).
Daguerrotype Early photograph produced in the
manner of Louis Daguerre (1789–1851), a French
theatrical designer who teamed up with Joseph
Nicéphore Nièpce (1765–1833), a founding father
of photography, in 1830. Nièpce died three years
later but Daguerre continued their work, fi xing
images on metal plates coated with silver iodide,
which he treated with mercury vapour in a dark-
room. Daguerre was eventually able to reduce
the exposure time of a photograph from 8 hours
to between 20 and 30 minutes. His Daguerro-
type was taken up by the French government in
July 1839 and revealed to the world at a meeting
of the Académies des Sciences in August. No
prints could be made from a Daguerrotype; thus
Daguerre’s method was a cul-de-sac in photog-
raphy, though a vastly successful one at the time.
See photography, origins.
Dance’s helical model of communication,
1967 The earliest communication models
were linear; their successors were circular,
emphasizing the crucial factor of feedback in
the communication process. Frank E.X. Dance
in ‘A helical model of communication’ in the
book he edited, Human Communication Th eory
(Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967), commends
the circular model as an advance upon the linear
one, but faults it on the grounds that it suggests
that communication comes back full-circle, to
exactly the same point from which it started – an
assumption which is ‘manifestly erroneous’.
Th e helix or spiral, for Dance, ‘combines the
desirable features of the straight line and of the
circle while avoiding the weaknesses of either’.
He goes on, ‘At any and all times, the helix
gives geometric testimony to the concept that
Communication while moving forward is at the
same moment coming back upon itself and being
aff ected by its past behaviour, for the coming
curve of the helix is fundamentally affected
by the curve from which it emerges.’ Dance’s
spiral concept parallels theories of education
put forward by Jerome Bruner, and generally
referred to as the spiral curriculum. See topic
guide under communication models.
Data footprint Term describing the ‘trail’ inter-
net users leave in their wake, the evidence of
their identity, online activity, what they commu-
nicate about and to whom. Th e data footprint
provides clues to every interaction online or