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The Dartmouth
July 10, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Technology, privacy concerns highlighted at Tuck conference

Information technology companies, industry bigwigs and privacy experts descended on Dartmouth Wednesday to discuss personalized products and privacy issues for "Tech@Tuck," an event sponsored by the Tuck School of Business' Center for Digital Strategies.

The event began with demonstrations of personalized devices and products from companies including Alpine, Apple, Bose, Dell, Delphi, Garmin, Honda, Palm, Samsung and Sony. Devices and software included a version of Dell's Axiom handheld computer and Apple's iPod shuffle and iPhoto software. Event organizers estimated that 70 to 80 people attended the demonstrations.

The event also included two panel discussions. The first addressed the increased personalization of commercial areas of the Internet. Ari Schwartz, an associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, moderated the four-person panel, which included privacy advocate Robert Ellis Smith, the publisher of Privacy Journal, and business executive Lisa Rosner, BroadVision's vice president of worldwide marketing.

Smith expressed concern about the trend toward personalization, particularly with respect to what he called the lack of regulation concerning the accuracy of personal information databases and government access to personal information. While he was less concerned about companies gaining access to personal information, Smith expressed fear about what may come of increased government access.

Smith pointed to the 2000 presidential election in Florida, during which the state commissioned a database company to draw up lists of felons to prevent them from voting but accidentally barred some non-felons, as an example of the problems inherent in personal information.

"The level of accuracy isn't high enough," Smith said.

According to Smith, the lack of accuracy is the result of a lack of regulations, so he advocated a mandatory accuracy standard for personal information databases.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Smith is even more concerned with how the government is going to handle personal information.

"[The government] is hiring large database companies to provide information," Smith said. "In the very near future, when you make a flight reservation, your name will be run through a database to determine whether or not you're a threat and whether you can fly."

The other panel discussion dealt with the personalization of healthare and related privacy issues. Don Conway, an adjunct professor at the Tuck School and the Dartmouth Medical School, moderated the discussion, which included executives from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and DMS including Paul Gardent, the executive vice president of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and Shawn Roman, an executive at Accenture.

Past "Tech@Tuck" events focused on issues such as file-sharing and digital music, outsourcing, security and privacy, wireless capabilities and handheld computing.