Emerging trends of electronic recordkeeping: a public policy perspective.

• Author: Gaynon, David B.
• Position: Brief article - Book review

Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age

Author: Viktor Mayer-Schonberger

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: 2009

Length: 237 pages

Price: $24.95 in hardcover

ISBN-13:978-0-691-13861-9

Source: http://press.princeton.edu/

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What do emerging patterns of recordkeeping mean for our future? Suppose all of our documents--business and personal were captured, preserved indefinitely, and indexed by a third-party service provider for quick and efficient retrieval. What will the loss of our ability to forget mean to us as a society?

In Delete." The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, author Viktor MayerSchonberger suggests that emerging patterns of recordkeeping creates risks to our democratic values and rational decision making.

Pinpointing Four Immediate Risks

Mayer-Schonberger identifies four risks and assesses possible public policy responses.

1. Power and influence shifts to those individuals using technology to collect and/or purchase detailed information about daily activities. Insurance firms access applicants' pharmacy records to determine if any pre-existing conditions have been omitted from their paperwork. Employers sometimes require job applicants to provide their passwords to social media sites. Parents warn college students that information they post to social media sites will be subject to review by third parties. Dissatisfied customers may fear to criticize their business partners. An awareness of being ob served intimidates the information "have-nots" from criticizing those individuals in position of authority. Even records managers know that messages sent to the records management listserv may be used to undermine their credibility in a legal proceeding.

2. The ability to forget serves as a filtering tool to put information in perspective. Human beings do not remember everything. Their recall ability is driven by their need for information, so unused information fades over time. Natural selection produced this information-filtering tool, and the use of technology to undermine it presents grave risks to rational decision making.

3. An individual's ability to decide may be overwhelmed by too much data with too little context. For example, a search engine query produces long lists of documents. But without the context in which they were created, important information is lost--even with 100% retrieval. The large volume of available data without the filter, or forgetting, may impede...