Data privacy is an ongoing debate fraught with complexities. But there is an increasing awareness among the people and an acknowledgment from the industry that they need to inform consumers before using their data. Will the future be witness to a scenario where all concerns around privacy — personal, business and security — are addressed?
Data has been termed the fuel of the information age, in which applications ranging from interconnected devices to smart mobility would primarily hinge on data.
Data usually has two components: spatial and non-spatial. The traditional geospatial data, which includes satellite imagery, national maps, etc. does not come with a privacy rider, as it is purely fact-based. However, when this data gets merged or extrapolated with location data, the privacy concerns come up. Location data of one individual isn’t usually valuable — it becomes useful only when it is aggregated and combined at a population level.
In the beginning of 2019, Google was fined EUR 50 million ($55 million) by French data regulator CNIL for violating the European Union’s data protection rules. CNIL said that the hefty fine was imposed due to lack of transparency and absence of a ‘valid consent regarding ad personalization’. It was ascertained that people were not adequately informed about how the data is used to customize advertisements. British Airways too came under the scanner and was fined GBP 183 million ($241 million).
In July 2019, the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Equifax around $700 million for a 2017 data breach that leaked data of more than 143 million people in the US alone.
This led to heated debates on one of the most pressing issues of the day — contours of data privacy. There are also demands for data localization and data sovereignty from some quarters, which is fraught with many complications as people are not sure who should they trust more: national governments or big tech players.
It is an open secret now that most tech players sell user data to third party aggregators. All of our smartphones have a record of our data and most Android apps gain access to the phone and store our data. There is also an issue of our smartphones/laptops recording audio without authorization. Using this data, anything ranging from behavior manipulation to influencing consumer behaviors, voting patterns, or even something downright nefarious, can be done.
