Collecting and using data

The methods that organizations or businesses use to collect data and the ways that data is used once it is collected and stored have enormous privacy implications. We now discuss some privacy issues related to the collection of data. In particular, we discuss how information collected by cookies and clicktrails may be used in ways that infringe on data privacy rights.

Cookies

Need to add brief intro of what cookies are and why they present privacy concerns, eg direct marketing, profiling and ‘purchase circles’.

To find out more about how cookies work, you can go to http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cookie.htm. The link entitled ‘Cookies basics’ tells you how cookies store information and how to locate the cookies that are stored in your computer.