Jeff Bagosy
Ist 110
Gerry Santoro
Databases
are systems used to find out certain things about a big list of information
without going through the whole list looking for that one particular
thing. Using databases they can use
queries to find that information. There
are many types of databases they range from simple things such as phonebooks
and stretch to more complex things such as databases used in large corporations
used to keep employee information and things such as pay information and history
of the company. Databases are especially
important in large corporations, can you imagine what business would be like
without databases, businesses would be extremely hindered, because of the time
it would take to find information. This
is why databases although they seem to be insignificant, the world is highly
dependent upon them.
Although
databases are helpful they are often misused. Like for example this situation,
“The 13-year-old daughter of a hospital records clerk in Jacksonville, Fla.,
used her mother's computer during an office visit and printed out names and
numbers of patients previously treated in the hospital's emergency room.
According to police, she then telephoned seven people and falsely told them
that they were infected by the HIV virus. One person attempted suicide after
the call. Upon arrest, the girl told police the calls were just a prank.1” This is a perfect situation of Database
misuse, it is important that when a company possesses a database with personal
information that the make sure there is security on it, and only certain people
in the company who have a need to see that information should have access.
The
fact of the matter is personal information shouldn’t be available to anyone
unless you sign a contract allowing them to see it. For example telemarketers should not be able
to access your phone number unless you allow them to. Databases should be used
as a tool to help and must be monitored for privacy reasons.
- 1. Website: http://md.hudora.de/blog/guids/95/27/15200212031115273595.html
Source: _Communications of the ACM_, Volume 38, Number 5, May 1995.
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