Want to know which political party your neighbors belong to? There’s an app for that.
Just download the new mobile application from the Obama campaign! The app links to Google Maps and shows your current location and marks registered Democrats with little blue flags. It also lists each neighbor’s first name, gender, age and party affiliation, for example: “Lori C., 58 F, Democrat.”
While all of this is public information, having it all delivered in nice tidy electronic packets to any smart phone is…disquieting. When asked about the privacy concerns and potential for misuse inherent in such software, an spokesman for the Obama campaign replied that “anyone familiar with the political process in America knows this information about registered voters is available and easily accessible to the public.” He added that the app only displays a small cluster of addresses at a time and that there are safeguards to alert if someone misuses the data “such as people submitting way too many voter contacts in a short period of time,”
Of course that could be changed by a less scrupulous user in a future version.
Much more at propublica
- Guns…And Other Four Letter Words - February 9, 2013
- She Walks Among Us - January 27, 2013
- Notes From The Belly Of The Beast - October 21, 2012
