All the technologies which help us also come up with some disadvantages, its tru for data mining as well. The biggest problem that is connected to data mining is privacy. While data mining might be a term that is well understood in certain circles, it has not yet entered the vocabulary of the general population.

If you are the owner of a business, do your customers know that you are putting their information in a database? Do you bother to tell them? If you are adding them to a database without their knowledge, how do you think they would feel if they found out?

What kind of personal information is open for public?

If you have ever wandered what it would be like to live in a world where all your movements and purchases were tracked, this world may be right around the corner. It is technologies such as data mining which will make it possible. While this tool will give companies the data they need to market their products and services to customers, it will also give them access to a large amount of personal information.

The governments talked about using data mining in order to track the movements of people in order to fight against terrorism.

But we dont know how much is too much!

How can one abuse data mining technology

In the information age, it sometimes seems as if everyone wants to know everything about you. The rapid transfer of personal information has led to the rise of identity theft.

Whenever you go to a bank to fill out a loan application, the information you put on it will probably be placed in a database. When you conduct an interview over the phone or on the internet, the information that you submit is also placed in a database. Many proponents of data mining assume that the information held by an organization will exist in one location. In reality, this information can fall into the hands of anyone, and once a single copy of it surfaces on the internet, it can be replicated numerous times. Many of the consumers who buy products or services are not aware of data mining technology. They may not know that their shopping habits, names, addresses, and other information is being stored in a database.

How to address privacy concerns

Customers should be given the right to choose whether or not they want to have their information placed in a database. It is likely that a large number of them won't because of privacy concerns. Large corporations that are fiercely competitive may avoid giving their customers an options because they don't want to lower their chances of being able to have an edge on their competition. Because of this, they are faced with the ethical problem of whether or not they should give customers the option of allowing their information to be placed in a database.

This is a problem that is not easy to solve. However in future there is a need to draw a fine line between what should be private and what should be personal information of each individuals.