Whenever we hear the words, ‘big data science/analysis’, it tends to give the appeal that it would be a new field of data analysis and management at a more comprehensive and directed level. But, the actual truth behind the jumble of words is quite different, scary, and exploratory.
This was made evident with the new season of House of Cards(2016) where it was shown how such an analytical tool could be used to invade our privacy, all in the name of democracy. Though it was a fictional plot, it is not unknown that such abuse of power has taken place in recent times.
Data scientists go by the description that what they are doing is simply analysing data from social networks, search engines, blogs, websites and try to create a more effective tool for precise marketing. But, the truth is, our privacy is being invaded, our rights to safeguard personal information is being violated.
Social networks, though seeming to be a free-form platform for the exchange of ‘ideas’, decided to sell our user data, our preferences, our likes and dislikes to these analytical organisations. Their argument is that we simply agreed to share our data with such third parties when we had decided to agree to those encyclopedic terms and agreements without a second thought.
It is scary how these data analytical organisations control as information on us in this new age of technology and sell it off to the highest bidder without a hint to its actual victims, that is us. Marketing campaigns are targeted exactly based on our likes/dislikes, wants, desires, inhibitions.
The temptation is created and we are being influenced and manipulated without a chance to realise, thanks to the skills of such data analysts. Think about those sudden texts from nowhere from delivery apps when you post a tweet about your craving for pizza? Ads about the best travel destinations? Or those native advertising articles with which the web is polluted nowadays?
What Snowden showed us, as a glimpse into the work of the National Security Agency (NSA) is being taken forward under sunlight by such data analysts, who, in the name of making our lives better through technology, are intruding into our personal space in the name of free-market consumerism. And, the worst part is that nothing is being done or spoken about against this abuse of power by social media giants, neither is a regulatory framework in place to stop this capitalistic ‘terrorism’ where we are forced and exploited towards a product through such analysis of our behaviour.
In an ethical sense, such analysis of private data should be seen in equivalence to stalking as that what it is in plain simple terms but is being showcased as the next big revolution in the technology field. People are losing their fundamental rights to privacy, whereby we can’t anymore decide on what we want to keep as public/private or which information of ours would we be safe to project it to the outer world (Google search yourself and see how much of data you have created about yourself).
Though such analytical firms would claim to play by the rules of ethical conducts, never have letters of consent been asked from such individuals every time their data is accessed by such firms. Neither are the individuals informed that such information of theirs have been shared with a particular third party. It is always proclaimed that all that has been shared has been agreed upon in the initial agreement between the user and the intermediary.
The Supreme Court of India stayed some provisions of the Aadhar Act due to similar concerns, whereby the Government of India had to come in and explain how the privacy of individuals shall be ensured, and key data shall not be shared with any parties as such. Only after such confirmation and discussion on the extent of the implementation of the collected information, the honourable court gave a go-ahead to the social security project in India.
Also, the leaking of celebrity images from Apple’s iCloud could be attributed to big data collection of Apple Inc., whereby certain backdoors to the system were exploited to gain access to private images by hackers. Such ‘Big Data Analysts’, who take pride in calling themselves as hackers, and proclaim to be ‘white hats’, aren’t such as so.
Hence it is high time for the society to come against this abusive use of technology in the name of ‘betterment’, as a similar argument was given in the past for the invention of nuclear energy, and we all know where it has led us to at present times.
The Right to be Forgotten is a concrete step by EU, but what we need in this field is the right to recall our data from such firms, public scrutiny of the data algorithm, and the application of such firms, the roll-back of advertising to its historic form (Think of the Mad Men age of advertising, there was some dignity to the job back in the era.)
Just think about it, somewhere on some server, is a file with your name, with all your information, all your private messages, pictures, locations, tags, check-ins, bank details, family details, products you own, want to own, political leaning, browsing history, browsing pattern, search patterns just waiting for one click away from access by a stranger, who analyses this data to predict and influence your next move. Scary, but true.