Better web privacy through fading data

A DUTCH RESEARCHER is looking at a way of improving privacy by 'degrading' information that websites keep.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Harold van Heerde of the University of Twente said that it could be possible to guard against data leaks by swapping details for more general information.

Currently, large databases are kept on customers where information is hoarded just in case it becomes valuable. Obviously this information can leak out, usually due to mistakes by people.

Van Heerde believes that people might have more faith in giving their data away if there were policies which meant that data degraded over time.

For example, initially during a credit card transaction all the relevant details would be stored. With time though, this could be swapped for more general information a customer would be much happier to give away.

Or with location-search information, exact GPS co-ordinates could be swapped for a street name, neighbourhood and then just a city.

It could also force companies like Facebook and Google to be forthcoming about what sort of data they have about us and why they are keeping it.

For instance, there is no good reason why Facebook might have a party picture of us stored on its database, especially if we've deleted it. µ