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Devious AP/Yahoo 'reports' below. Didn't explain why the police would even need this type of information. Or, say who developed the software, and who owns the company. |
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N.Y. Exits Matrix Crime Database Program 3/11/04
ALBANY, N.Y. - New York has dropped out of a multistate crime database program that civil liberties groups have criticized as an invasion of privacy, state officials said Thursday. Questions over federal funding for the Matrix database and its potential benefits led state officials to withdraw, said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the New York State Office of Public Security. State officials also have previously cited privacy concerns. Matrix lets states share criminal, prison and vehicle information with one another and cross-reference the data with up to 20 billion records in databases held by Seisint Inc., a private company based in Boca Raton, Fla. The Seisint records include, among other things, the property, boats and Internet domain names that people own, their address history, utility connections, bankruptcies, liens and business filings, according to an August report by the Georgia state Office of Homeland Security. The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) has criticized the program, worried that the database could be used to track private information about individuals who have never been suspected of a crime. New York started questioning Matrix when several other states that had explored the program dropped out because of privacy or cost concerns, Rasic said. Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas all left the program. Matrix, short for the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, began in 2002 in Florida. Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, had signed onto the program, helped by $12 million in initial funding from the federal government. |
