I was at an interesting meeting this week regarding privacy concerns of use of personal data by private sector and government organizations. I was there to talk about Georgetown’s building the McCourt School Massive Data Institute and the issues that we see in trying to use new data resources for the common good to build a better society and a better world.
I learned that the amount of internet-generated data is increasing at a rate of 40% per year. I learned that internet traffic (much of it generating such data) is doubling every 2 to 3 years. Although there are about 7-8 billion people in the world, there are about 21 billion connections to the internet. These consist of three times as many people-less devices (like sensors) as devices operated by people (like PC’s, tablets, and smartphones). More importantly, most of such sensor-like devices have not yet been connected to the internet.
With these kinds of growth numbers, one can easily see how relying on laws and public policies to keep pace with the change in data is problematic. The pace of regulation and law-making is a slow one, with wide consultation necessary and debate and compromise common. The growth of the internet data is so quick and so profound that other ways to assure ethical behavior seems more appealing.
Recent discussions about misuses of real time data, the hacking into commercial and government data resources, and public debate about the tailoring of online advertising to personal profiles have stimulated new privacy concerns. Recent government reports on uses of big data have emphasized how abuses of big data might disproportionately harm those in lower socioeconomic statuses and with lower educational achievement.
When we examine the behavior of the public with regard to protecting their individual data, however, two speculations arise. First, there seems to be cultural differences in acceptable behavior across the age span. The current cohort of older adults seem to behave differently than younger adults. Second, even older adults appear to be willing to reveal personal attributes to private sector vendors in return for very small benefits (witness shopper memberships for discounts and free software in return for tracking of personal use of the software). Our behavior suggests that sensitivity to privacy issues is heavily contextually defined. People appear to make decisions about giving up their private information based on rewards that they might obtain from doing so.
This is relevant to Georgetown efforts to discern how the new world of high-dimensional data might be used to build a better world. Here the “reward” for a person revealing his or her data would be helping the expansion of knowledge about the welfare of the society. Thus, personal and individual rewards are relatively minor. Instead, support of common good uses of big data is more like an act of civic participation. In this regard, it is similar to a gift of time to one’s community as a volunteer. The personal benefit is minor; the societal benefit is potentially large.
Following this logic, it seems important to contextualize discussions of privacy concerns surrounding internet data. For some uses of my personal data, I would gladly give up control over my personal information; for others, I would not. Data themselves don’t cause privacy issues; alternative uses of the data pose the issues.
Without transparency about the uses of data, it’s difficult to see how we can make progress on dealing wisely with privacy concerns.
Like nuclear power, data can be immensely beneficial or catastrophically harmful — but since data can be “deactivated” the latter risks can me minimized. I look forward to McCourt’s MDI’s scholarly innovations in policy and technology to harness data solely for the good of society.
Interesting topic . There is certainly TMI now a days. I do worry as a Psychiatrist about privacy and confidentiality… ALOT. So it will be a very interesting discussions. Good Luck.