The "problem" is that it is increasingly easy to assemble these databases and to update them in real time. If a government agency isn't doing it, a corporation could be (and some are, for certain pieces of data), and soon (if not now) an individual or loose collection of individuals could achieve nearly the same results.
We might need to embrace it, make everything transparent and collaborative, and figure out how to make use of the information to create a state that is better than what currently exists.
Thank you. Just to clarify, even though I'm a libertarian, this isn't a "Big Gummit" problem. If DOJ wasn't doing this, Yellow Cab would. Or Uber. Or the guys who build traffic lights. The data is simply too valuable to ignore.
This is a tech problem. We created this, all while saying something like "Yeah, but all that ethical and philosophy stuff isn't really anything I need to worry about. What I need are eyeballs"
The government takes the blame in many cases because they hold all the trump cards -- they can take the data from anybody that's collecting it. They can also send you to jail, which commercial providers cannot directly do (yet). But the problem is with the tech. We have met the enemy and he is us.
We might need to embrace it, make everything transparent and collaborative, and figure out how to make use of the information to create a state that is better than what currently exists.