Some privacy issues in knowledge discovery: the OECD personal privacy guidelines

Several countries have generated principles to protect individuals from the potential invasion of privacy that data collection and retrieval poses. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has provided probably the best known set of guidelines. A number of countries have adopted these guidelines as statutory law, in whole or in part. The OECD has specific guidelines pertaining to data privacy that directly affect those performing knowledge discovery generally, and those who use so called “personal data” in particular. The article addresses such questions as: What are the implications of the existing privacy guidelines, especially those of the OECD, for knowledge discovery? What are the limitations of these guidelines? How do the restrictions on knowledge discovery about individuals affect knowledge discovery on groups? How do legal systems influence knowledge discovery?