Big data: Philanthropy or privacy invasion?

Ayee Macaraig

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'CREEPY VIOLATIONS.' Human rights groups warn against the implications of using big data on privacy and free expression. Photo by Ayee Macaraig/Rappler

BALI, Indonesia – Tweets, Facebook posts, Youtube videos. These can be powerful tools to address major global issues like health care and disasters. But what risks do you take in increasingly exposing yourself online?

Representatives from the United Nations and civil society groups discussed privacy and big data, one of the buzzwords now used in technology and development.

Tech analysts define big data as “the tools, processes and procedures allowing an organization to create, manipulate and manage large data sets and storage facilities.” (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/what-is-big-data/1708)

At workshops in the UN’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF) here, panelists talked about the potential of big data for economic benefits and solving social problems but also highlighted its implications on privacy and freedom of expression.

“We think big data is the greatest opportunity to present itself to global development in many, many years, unless you fail to protect privacy in the process, in which case this may be the greatest threat to human rights the world has ever known,” said Robert Kirkpatrick, director of the UN Global Pulse.

What are the advantages and drawbacks of using big data? Here are the key points from the discussions.

Pros: Data philanthropy and innovation in different fields

The panelists explained that companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay store user data by default, which can later be aggregated for various uses. They spoke at a workshop held on Wednesday, October 23.

Kirkpatrick said the UN engages with companies to get data that can be used for innovations to fight problems like hunger, poverty and disease. He called the idea “data philanthropy.”

He cited Dr Google as an example. “It’s the first thing people do when they or a family member gets sick. They search for information online about their symptoms. This has been shown to predict the outbreaks of diseases.”

Another source of data is mobile phones, which people now use for money transfer and payments.

“Mobile carriers can see a population of a country moving around in real time around the map. All around the UN, we have maps of poverty, disease outbreaks but we can’t see the people. But a mobile carrier, as people move their devices around and communicate, can see where people are moving,” said Kirkpatrick.

“This is very valuable because you can see the daily commute to work and where it stops. You can see the patterns of migration, where people move after disasters, find ways to optimize your transportation because you know where the traffic jams are or the spread of malaria. There’s a lot of potential here.”

Cons: Intrusion and discrimination

Speakers from civil society agree that big data has a positive impact especially for developing countries, but warned that it can lead to “creepy violations of privacy.”

Jochai Ben-Avie, policy director at human rights organization Access, said a high school student was browsing through products of retailer Target online. The company sent her coupons for diapers and baby formula, surprising her father who only found out she was pregnant because of the incident.

“Companies learn a lot about us and with all this information, they are capable of making important decisions on our behalf like determining our credit rating and insurance rates or even eligibility for a particular job,” Ben-Avie said.

Alexandrine Pirlot of Privacy International said big data can be discriminatory and exclusionary.

“The data collected is from people who are active on the Internet but it excludes the ones that don’t take part in these activities, whose behavior, decisions and needs are completely excluded from decision-making processes in big data programs,” she said.

Pirlot also cited surveillance as a negative consequence of using big data. She commented on the controversy surrounding the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked the US mass surveillance program PRISM.

“It casts light on how much data is collected without a purpose, the basics: what is your objective, you need to justify that to the data owner. When big data is being developed, there is no way at every step of the process to get consent. This data can be there in case it can be used someday, which can be dangerous in protecting the right to privacy of individuals,” she said.

In another workshop on Online Anonymity, Freedom of Expression and Internet Governance held Thursday, panelists said netizens can no longer assume that anonymity can protect them from intrusion.

“You are only anonymous in relation to somebody else. If you are on a forum, you might be anonymous to the other users of the forum, but you are probably not to the moderators or the owners of website. You really need to be aware of that. What you say online can almost always be traced back to you,” said Eline Van Ommen, a student at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

How to protect yourself

Pirlot said in using big data, international organizations, governments and companies must strike a delicate balance to protect privacy.

“This has to be done in a manner in which the data owners understand what data is going to be used and it shouldn’t just be putting all the information out there to be used even if it’s for social development because you’re violating the privacy of these individuals even if the end goal is positive,” she said.

Panelists admitted that there is a lack of tools to protect data while companies increasingly encourage users to share more information that they can use commercially.

In the absence of tools and safeguards, human rights groups said netizens can take steps to protect themselves.

Pirlot said Internet users should think of the long-term implications of what they post online.

“It’s not like you click and it’s just gone and it disappears, it has a digital memory saved on cyberspace and that information will be stored and one day, it can be used for a purpose or another,” Pirlot told Rappler.

“Taking the necessary steps where it’s possible to read privacy policies, tick the right boxes, they’re always in small characters at the bottom of contracts.”

“It’s your decision to make,” she added. – Rappler.com

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