DBAzine.com

Sections

Personal tools

You are not logged in
Log in
Join

You are here: Home » Blogs » Craig Mullins Blog » Craig Mullins: Perspectives on Database Management » Data Privacy, Sharing Tax Data, and a New Hippocratic Oath » RE: Is the Oath the answer ?

Who Are You?

I am a:
[ Results | Polls ]
Votes : 249

Comment

Above in this comment thread: Data Privacy, Sharing Tax Data, and a New Hippocratic Oath

RE: Is the Oath the answer ?

Posted by howardfci at 2006-03-28 07:16 PM

This article is thought-provoking. Readers may not realize that today's lax laws mean that personal financial information is ALREADY routinely sold (the pertinent law , Gramm-Leahy-Bliley, has hardly even slowed down the so-called "data brokering" industry.)

I don't think an oath like you suggest for DBAs would be "the answer" (although it might be one component in the answer).

The trouble is that, as a DBA, I am rarely given the power to implement this sentence in the oath -- "I will enact proper procedures and security for the good of my company's customers according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to any data entrusted to me."

Sometimes company policies are dictated to me. My only recourse is to implement them or quit.

In most cases, I am told that I'm responsible "for implementing good data protection policies." But then I am given no control over my time. So I'm held responsible but haven't been given a fair chance to do a reasonable job.

Bottom line -- as a DBA I'm rarely the decision maker. We need national laws that either mandate safe treatment of data or enforce penalties otherwise.

Probably Not Entirely but...

Posted by cmullins at 2006-03-28 10:17 PM

You make several good points. It is true that DBAs are not corporate decision makers. Yet the same could be said of many doctors (working in practice for another doctor, working at a hospital, etc.). If all data professionals (not just DBAs) took such an oath would not the eventual effect be that the folks in control would have no one who would enact policies against such an oath?

You say there is little choice but to implement policies you disagree with or to quit. Perhaps there ought to be more quitting. I know this is a difficult and disruptive thing to go through, but perhaps it is better to be ethically whole than financially flush?

But I do think that I agree with your "bottom line" line. DBAs are not corporate decision makers -- and we need (inter)national laws that mandate safe treatment of data with enforceable penalties to be enacted otherwise.