Privacy vs. openness: A data dilemma in U.S.

Privacy vs. openness: A data dilemma in U.S.: "Working with a budget of $50 and a strict requirement to use only legal, public sources of information, groups of three to four students set out to vacuum up not just tidbits on individuals, but whole databases - death records, property tax information, campaign donations, occupational license registries - on citizens of Baltimore. They then cleaned and linked the databases they had collected, making it possible to enter a single name and generate multiple layers of information on individuals.

The Johns Hopkins students demonstrated - as has a growing chorus of privacy advocates around the United States - that there is plenty of information to be had on individuals without ever buying it (or stealing it) from big database companies"