Privacy groups target Google Flu Trends

Caption: Can you find the "privacy concern" in these Google Flu Trends data? Hint: There may not be one.

Google's recent announcement that it may have found a way to predict U.S. flu trends has led to the inevitable expressions of concern from some privacy groups.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Patient Privacy Rights sent a letter this week to Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying if the records are "disclosed and linked to a particular user, there could be adverse consequences for education, employment, insurance, and even travel." It asks for more disclosure about how Google Flu Trends protects privacy.

In reality, Google is releasing precisely zero personally identifiable information about its users.

Instead, Google Flu Trends publishes one number per state, representing the company's best guess based on search queries at influenza-related cases in each state. These are the same type of regional statistics that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already publishes.

If you think that knowing that Alaska's "influenza-like illness" number for the week of November 9 is 2.035 and California's number is 1.384 is somehow worrisome and can identify you personally, it's time to break out your tinfoil hat.

"There are no new privacy implications," Mike Yang, a Google lawyer, told me on Friday.

EPIC acknowledges that Google Flu Trends may prove useful. But the group is also making a more subtle argument as well.

"The basic question I'm asking to Google is: how can it be that across all these key terms, you can generate aggregate anonymized data without any risk of reidentification?" said Marc Rotenberg, EPIC executive director.

Put another way, what if an attorney general in a state where marijuana was illegal sent a subpoena to Google asking for the identities of anyone who typed in "how to grow pot?" Or if abortion were illegal in a certain state, what if the subpoena wanted to know who typed in "how to get an abortion?"

Google has told us in the past that if, given a list of search terms, it can produce a list of people who searched for that term, identified by IP address and/or cookie value. If they're registered with Google, the company also knows the names they typed in when registering. (Google partially anonymizes log files after nine months. And, of course, the company has fought legal battles to keep these data confidential.)

EPIC's answer to these hypotheticals is to pressure Google--and this week's letter was a part of that strategy--to keep logs for an even shorter period of time, or not at all.

EPIC's Web site darkly warns: "There are no clear legal or technological privacy safeguards that prevent the disclosure of individual search histories. Without such privacy safeguards Google Flu Trends could be used to reidentify users who search for medical information. Such user-specific investigations could be compelled, even over Google's objection, by court order or presidential authority."

Yet keeping search logs for nine months may be useful for dealing with advertising-related questions and for optimizing a search engine's responsiveness. If users don't like that, nobody's forcing them to use Google. They also have the choice of using an anonymizing service like Tor.

But if the problem is bad laws and nebulous "presidential authority" that permits fishing expeditions, then it makes sense to fix them. This week's letter might have been better addressed to President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress, asking them to make sure the Fourth Amendment's protections are extended to information stored by third parties like search engines. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen.

Disclosure: The author is married to a Google employee.

[nicmart]

As usual, Declan makes excellent points. In this case, though, through no fault of Google's, there may be some reason for concern. There are no longer any meaningful privacy protections for Americans when the government wants to obtain about them, from Google or any other source. The country has been borked.

[SwissJay]

Honestly, in my opinion, there were companies around long before Google that knew where I was on any given date, what I was doing, etc. It's called CREDIT CARDS. Citibank sends me a nice little batch of pages at the end of every year that shows exactly how much I spent on groceries, car repair, medication, software, entertainment, etc. etc. Does it bother me? Nah! It's a choice I make. I could just use cash for everything if I have a problem with it. Same thing with Google, you can just avoid using it and install a Firefox extension like NoScript that will block google-analytics from tracking you all over the internet. I myself thought that this flu tool was a nice "toy" although probably not very accurate!

[mikeburek]

An over-simplification of their concern: I sure hope they don't find out how to search onTwitter, or Twitter will be taken down for privacy concerns.

[professionaladventurer]

Use my trick:
I google words I need to spell check on a one by one basis. Never ever will any court be able to use my google searchs against me.

[Stephen Macklin]

Where were these privacy advocates when no less than six government agencies in Ohio conducted record searches on a private citizen and turned the information over to the media?

They were silent.

This is simply agenda driven nonsense.

[ewalsh69]

I love this clip, when you read it, it sounds ridiculous, like a story from "The Onion" paper!

"...Privacy Rights worry that Google Flu Trends may be privacy-invasive and urge Google CEO Eric Schmidt to reveal more information. ..."

"Worried" Googles tool may be "privacy-invasive" and urges Google to REVEAL "more information." HUH!!??!!
---
I know once I read the article I get what they mean, but headline clip really is misleading and sensational. Although its not as bad as a NY Post headline! :-)
---
BTW, this is silly. Its all about choice. If you don't want to be tracked give back your EZPass, credit cards, Mass Transit cards, NEVER cross the border, and wear a hood or bag over your head in any city or store or better yet never leave house (to avoid CCTV systems). If you don't want a Search engine to track you, don't use them, get your info from the library (but don't ever get a library card!)
And if you want to research ILLEGAL activities! Then be smart about it and either DON'T use a traceable source OR use an Anom system. Better yet if your looking to grow pot, get your info (and equipment via CASH only) from a hydroponics store, there everywhere, I know of one within 5 miles of me here in NYC. Just go in and ask them to set you up to grow "tomatoes-wink wink" indoors "even if it is the summer time."

Now that said, I'm back to making my beer (don't want anyone to know I drink alcohol so I make beer in my garage! Just in case we go back to a prohibition country again!) :-)
Just kidding, but not about making beer I do brew my own and get supplies from that Hydroponic store I mentioned, there useful for more than just ONE sinful vice!
Excuse me I hear the Feds knocking on my front door. (man their fast!!)

[unknown unknown]

EPIC has cried wolf too many times.

[ericbol1]

The arguments sound very much like what we heard in the discussion about whether Microsoft is in a monopoly situation or not: "Nobody is forced to use MS software - if you complain about the strength of Microsoft, just use Linux" The remedies, using services like Tor, are something for the geeks but certainly not suitable for my mother, and along with her for all the millions that don't make a choice and simply use the search engine that is being pushed in front of them (in most cases, what is being pushed in front of these people is Google - by means of all sorts of close-to-malware deals with Adobe, WD, etc that cross-market Google's toolbar)
Linking information is the key thing in Google's monopoly, and drawing comparisons to eg credit-card companies just does not work - Google operates on a different scale. Citibank may have the information what I have shopped in the end - but Google is the only company that is able to collect the full history of my purchase: For example, I read an article on CNET about a gadget - Google Analytics records that I read the page. A day later Google Mail showed me an ad for that gadget along with the email a friend sent me about a related product. Then Google Checkout recorded where I actually purchased the thing. In addition to all that, they have my full profile of all my search queries, my social network, my instant messages, my VOIP calls in their new system to kill Skype.
I find that scary. Companies like Citibank are restricted quite a lot in what they can do with the data, but Google is more or less operating in the wild. Their privacy statement is loose enough to allow them to monetize *everything* they know about me.

Btw, another disclosure would have been helpful... Which one? Hint: What do we see at the end of this article? (Sponsored links, courtesy of Google.) If Google pays us, sure we are going to be very critical?

[freemarket--2008]

The fact that you use all of these Google tools and services despite your oh so serious concern is kind of hypocritical don't you think? There are alternatives for every service Google offers. As pointed out above, there are also ways to avoid being tracked.

Personally, I trust businesses not to **** off customers more than I trust the government to give up power once they get it. The government is the biggest, most oppressive monopoly of all.

[jypeterson]

If anyone thinks that their personal information is really private, they have their head in the sand.
1) Tax and property records are available online for most areas
2) Many states now offer birth/death records online
3) IP addresses are logged by websites, GPS data from cell phones show where you are at, et cetera, et cetera

This is all about living in the digital data age. If the government wants to track its citizens, it will. You can't stop it -- especially in an age with so much information available.

As we become more technologically advanced, data farming will become more efficient. The only way to avoid that might just be to wear that tin foil hat.

[P_F_M]

I had heard the government was tracking information about us but did not know they were in cahoots with Google. Makes sense. I can;t wait for Obama to put a stop to this type of government intervention and tracking of personal information.

[eysenbach]

NEWSFLASH: The idea to look at search data as early warning systems for flu outbreaks is not a Google invention, but was actually already proposed over 3 years ago (published 2006), by researchers from the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation and U of T.

And search trend data and click data is available to everybody who pays for an ad:


Eysenbach G. Infodemiology: tracking flu-related searches on the web for syndromic surveillance. AMIA Annu Symp Proc 2006:244-248
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=17238340

Eysenbach G. Infodemiology and Infoveillance: Framework for an Emerging Set of Public Health Informatics Methods to Analyze Search, Communication and Publication Behavior on the Internet
J Med Internet Res 2009;11(1):e11
URL: http://www.jmir.org/2009/1/e11

The Virus Chasers
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/35061.html
CIHR Newsarticle (2007) about the infodemiology / infoveillance work at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation in Toronto