Privacy being violated by Big Data

Privacy being violated by Big Data

The modern society is data-centric. More than ever, there is an overreliance on technology and real-time data in activities such as online shopping and social networking. Despite the existence of numerous advantages on the use of such data, concerns arise regarding the collection of a substantial amount of information that constitutes an invasion of user’s privacy.

Big data entails personal information that marketing corporations use to create significant new opportunities for the technology-centric customers (Manyika et al., 2011). As a result, big data analytics emerges as a trend that is at odds with business ethics. Notably, it presents both strategic and technical capabilities to derive value from the business corporations’ stored information (Zikopolos & Eaton, 2011). Over time, the success of business data analytics prompts additional violation of consumer privacy and security.

Recommendations to Optimize Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights

The uncertainty on how corporations utilize big data concerns the consumer. Hence, more than 51% are unwilling to share their personal information (McAfee et al., 2012). There are several factors that can be used to uphold the bill of rights on privacy. First, the government should grant the customers the control over the type of information collected by the corporation (McKenna et al., 2012). An empowerment such as this not only improves transparency but also leads to awareness creation on the consumer’s rights. Second, the state should give consumers a platform to voice their concerns for inclusion in the existing bill of rights. Most importantly, the drafters should review the bill periodically to update on the latest technological development (Tene & Polonetsky, 2012). If they do this, the customers will hardly become victims of malicious big data mining by hackers or unethical business firms. Finally, the government should conduct an extensive research on the market practices to detect existing big data flaws and to provide solutions respectively.

References

Manyika, J., Chui, M., Brown, B., Bughin, J., Dobbs, R., Roxburgh, C., & Byers, A. H. (2011). Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and Productivity. London: Oxford Publishers.

McAfee, A., Brynjolfsson, E., Davenport, T. H., Patil, D. J., & Barton, D. (2012). Big Data. The Management Revolution. Harvard Bus Rev, 61-67.

McKenna, E., Richardson, I., & Thomson, M. (2012). Smart Meter Data: Balancing Consumer Privacy Concerns with Legitimate Applications. Energy Policy, 41, 807-814.

Tene, O., & Polonetsky, J. (2012). Big Data for All: Privacy and User Control in the Age of Analytics. Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop., 11, xxvii.

Zikopoulos, P., & Eaton, C. (2011). Understanding Big Data: Analytics for Enterprise Class Hadoop and Streaming Data. London: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.