Personal privacy and the ethics associated with function creep--that is, collecting data for one purpose and applying it to other unstated purposes--concern everyone. This paper proposes that personal privacy can be enhanced by supplying deliberately inaccurate data. Although several examples are given concerning privacy enhancement through the use of incorrect data, they tend to be quite specific and do not demonstrate wider scenarios of the concept.

Later in the paper, a discussion raises more important and over-arching issues in connection with, for example, predictive data mining techniques, as applied to the enhancement of security. This area is extremely topical; since 9/11, the “prevention of terrorism” has been used as a catchall that has eroded traditional personal privacy and catalyzed function creep. The discussion is an interesting introduction to a number of key issues in this area.