When I read Orwell’s 1984 in high school, 1984 seemed far enough away to qualify for science fiction. When it arrived I was too busy to notice – buried in my career, happily building the very computer systems that would eventually breathe life into “Big Brother.”
Now we have the technology to gather incredible amounts of discreet data, store it, analyze it and use it. A few examples of this capability have been surfacing in the public discourse:
- A major retailer can determine that a woman is pregnant and target market her even before her family knows.
- Your cell phone GPS data can be used to accurately forecast where you will be tomorrow afternoon.
- A search engine company has decided it can use all of your search data “internally” even if you select the ‘privacy’ option.
Are these uses of data ethical? Who does this data (my shopping habits, location, Internet searches) belong to? How is it being safeguarded? Does stripping the “personal identifying information” from these records really protect your privacy?
We will tackle this topic and analyze the issues using the Seven Layers of Integrity ® model in future posts. Stay tuned and receive alerts on new posts by following us on Twitter.
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[…] Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) gave a speech on data privacy to the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section. His speech highlighted data privacy as an antitrust issue. An interesting speech that hits on some of the same issues I am dealing with in this blog (My Big Data Footprint and How Corporations Use It). […]
[…] of my first posts (My Big Data Footprint) opened the discussion of privacy in the digital world. Following the Seven Layers of […]