Information management practitioners are familiar with metadata (or data about data) in the context of records. It is one of many tools that can be used to identify and categorize information, thus making it easier and faster to find in the future. Records metadata is a useful tool which doesn’t get a lot of attention.
But metadata of another sort has been getting worldwide attention ever since Edward Snowden blew the whistle about the US National Security Administration collecting cell phone metadata and requiring companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and Facebook to turn over information about email and Internet activities through the PRISM program. Snowden’s revelations illustrate how metadata can be used to provide a detailed digital profile of an individual. For more information, visit The NSA Files portal from the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
While some may not find that prospect alarming, many such as Ann Cavoukian (Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner) do. In a recent op ed article in the Toronto Star (July 17, 2013), she spoke out against what she sees as the flawed defense of justifying the NSA’s extensive surveillance operations by saying the information collected is “only metadata” and its collection “is neither sensitive nor privacy invasive since it does not access any of the content contained in associated phone calls or emails.”
Cavoukian argues the “truth is that collecting metadata can actually be more revealing than accessing the content of our communications.” You can read more about her thoughts on this topic in the recently released document, A Primer on Metadata: Separating Fact from Fiction available here.