Information, as the adage goes, is power. And, as another adage goes, power corrupts.

So what are we to make of a new $65-million police database that will allow officers across the province to share "real-time" information on Albertans who come into contact with the law? The database, called Talon, goes far beyond the scope of the current Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), which collects information from formal charges and convictions.

Talon will record virtually every interaction between police and civilians such as speeding tickets, checkstops and searches. It will even include personal information such as unproven allegations, investigation theories and details of 911 calls. If you're stopped by the police in Red Deer for a traffic violation, for example, an officer who pulls you over in Edmonton two hours later will have access to the Red Deer police file on you. In fact, it would appear that any police officer, Crown prosecutor or sheriff in any part of Alberta would have access to your file.

The idea is to give authorities more power and flexibility to deal with mobile criminals, particularly gangs. "The concept is that we will have a single source of the truth," said Ayaaz Janmohamed, an official with the solicitor general's department overseeing the project.

But this "truth" would not be verified by a trial or due process under the law. As such, it would be more akin to hearsay and that raises all kinds of troubling scenarios where the government will be amassing secret files on its citizens.

Nobody would begrudge police the opportunity to use new technologies to better protect the public but are we allowing the police to cast their net too wide? Might it ensnare our rights to privacy and due process? A citizen can put in a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) request to see what police have recorded about them, but where is the process for making corrections if there are errors in the information?

These are the legitimate questions being raised by opposition politicians and organizations such as the Alberta Criminal Trial Lawyers Association.

Another troubling question: Will the government allow Albertans to see a "privacy impact assessment" done on the Talon database? The government undertook the privacy assessment while it was quietly building up the database as part of a larger project called the Alberta Police Integrated Information Initiative. The assessment will be completed in March and will show how the new project will affect Albertans' right to privacy and how those rights should be protected.

The government is refusing to commit to making the assessment public.

Instead, the privacy assessment has been put in a kind of limbo where government officials offer vague reassurances they will be "guided" by the province's privacy commissioner on whether to make the assessment public but where the privacy commissioner himself says the decision to release the assessment is entirely in the hands of government.

There is a whiff here of Big Brother and secret government files. To clear the air and reassure Albertans, the government must answer the growing list of questions before making the database active this fall.