Ware, Willis H.

Ware was a member of the research staff of the Institute for Advanced Study (1946-1951), and later joined the corporate research staff of the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, CA. He was interested in the effect of computers on privacy, and served as chairman of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1972-1973), as well as vice chairman of the Privacy Protection Study Commission (1975-1977). Created by the Privacy Act of 1974, the commission examined privacy rights of individuals and the record-keeping practices of the public and private sectors.

Computer scientist.

The Mosaic Group was established by Seymour Goodman in 1977 at Princeton University and housed for many years at the University of Arizona. Mosaic (Multi-User On-Line System for the Analysis of International Computing) was an interdisciplinary collaborative effort to study the development and application of electronic digital computing in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the People’s Republic of China. Throughout the 1980s, Mosaic Group participants made between 3-5 trips annually to the USSR to gather information, conduct interviews, and visit pertinent sites. Together, they amassed an extraordinary amount of material on many technology areas, including robotics, mainframe computing and high-speed computers.

Willis H. Ware was one of the original staff members of the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton in 1946. In 1952, Ware joined Rand Corporation and from 1964 to 1971, he served as the head of the Computer Sciences Department at Rand and became a senior member of the corporate research staff. Ware was the first president of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) and received several awards including the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers Centennial Medal and AFIPS' Distinguished Service Award.

Ware was chairman of the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data, which was established in 1972 ...in response to growing concern about the harmful consequences that may result from uncontrolled application of computer and telecommunications technology to the collection, storage, and use of data about individual citizens. The committee's report entitled Records Computers and the Rights of Citizens, published in July 1973, led to the Federal Privacy Act of 1974.

Ware also served as vice-chairman of the Privacy Protection Study Commission which was created by the Privacy Act of 1974. The commission devoted two years to its study of personal data used by government and the private sector. Its final report entitled Personal Privacy in an Information Society and the associated appendices made recommendations for protecting personal data.