I was scanning the news and saw this story, MySpace donates sex offender database to US center, and I thought, groggily over coffee, hm, that bugs me… why does that bug me… hmmm, sip… Snip:
“News Corp.’s popular Internet social network MySpace said on Monday it will donate a national computer database on U.S. sex offenders to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Sex offender data is collected by individual state authorities. MySpace and background verification company Sentinel Tech Holdings Corp. developed a technology that combines close to 50 U.S. state registries, aiming to help police keep track of an estimated 600,000 convicted sex offenders.” Link.
Oh, that’s right. These are state registries, and depending on the state you’re in, you’re a “sex offender” under Megan’s Law if you get caught urinating in public, mooning, skinny dipping, or if you get busted having consensual sex in public. Think of how lopsided these charges must be in homophobic states. Also, it’s a lesson in what sites like MySpace can and will do with personal information. I’m definitely an advocate for speeding up natural selection when it comes to rapists and pedophiles, but I worry about what could happen to individuals and personal privacy when a questionably informed company casts a wide net, and turns it over to anyone who asks.
