logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Will Data Mining Affect Your Contracts?

Rick Cohen
December 10, 2010
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

December 7, 2010; Source: Nextgov.com | When the nonprofit Constitution Project issues a report that affects how nonprofits and government interact, it’s probably worth looking at.

Its newest report, Principles for Government Data Mining: Preserving Civil Liberties in the Information Age [PDF], the Constitution Project worries that government data mining “can offer significant benefits, but without adequate processes and controls, it can encroach on constitutional rights and values—including privacy, freedom of expression, due process, and equal protection.”

Data mining refers the automated process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.

Besides citing the obvious examples of the government’s controversial anti-terrorism lists, the Project presages the WikiLeaks controversy and warns that “Rogue government employees can abuse database access and look for information on the famous or infamous—as occurred with the 2008 presidential candidates.” With hindsight, they might have added military reports and classified State Department cables as well.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

But some types of data mining, “such as those that improve program efficiency and evaluate performance are very worthwhile.” Nonprofits are probably slowly becoming aware that data mining is being used to detect tax fraud and to spot and investigate potential misuse of economic stimulus funds.

For example, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the so-called RAT Board, has been using anti-terrorism-like data mining techniques to identify not only improper disbursements such as overpayments, but also “hard-to-find conflicts of interest between recipients and the contracts they have bid on.”

The Constitution Project implies that the definition of data mining used by government isn’t broad or inclusive enough, allowing some data mining initiatives to escape the reporting and disclosure required by the 2007 Data Mining Reporting Act. Nonetheless, despite government’s own reporting and classification deficiencies, nonprofits should assume that their contract information is subject to the pattern analysis that underlies much of data mining technology, and if they mess up, they might find their errors dug out and brought to the surface by federal data mining software—whether they like it or not.—Rick Cohen

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: Nonprofit News

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Sustainability Starts at Home: Growing Inner-City Food Ecosystems
Pastor Keith Davis
What Nigeria Can Teach the US About Food Insecurity
Chidinma Iwu
Arab American Philanthropy
Tamara El-Khoury
What Would a Social Justice Investment Ecosystem Look Like?
Steve Dubb
Forerunners of Food Justice: Black Farmer Movement Spans Generations
Demetrius Hunter
Measuring Healthcare Equity in North Carolina
Sonia Sarkar

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
AOC’s “Tax the Rich” Dress Dazzles Met Gala, while...
Anastasia Reesa Tomkin
Foundation Giving Numbers for 2020 Show 15 Percent Increase
Steve Dubb
Strike MoMA Imagines Art Museums without Billionaires
Tessa Crisman

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.