VOICES | Our digital footprint generates enormous value, but too much of it ends up in Big Tech silos Humanity has never been so comprehensively recorded
Bluetooth and GPS keep track of whether some of us shop at gourmet stores and linger in the candy aisle.Our search queries on shopping platforms are run through natural language processors to generate uniquely targeted ads whose unseen tethers subtly remould our tastes and habits.
Analysis based on such granular data is a gateway to influencing behaviour and has tremendous commercial value. To be sure, this is not a one-way street: consumers get many nice data-driven features for no direct financial cost in exchange. But are they getting enough? The weather forecaster may never get any better at predicting rain but could end up with a better prediction of the user’s creditworthiness than the scores compiled by traditional credit bureaus.Do we care about our privacy or not? Researchers have documented what is known as a “privacy paradox.” When asked to value their privacy in surveys, people frequently rank it as a very high priority.
Another reason is that authorising governments to combine location information with data on a disease diagnosis may be seen as particularly sensitive. After all, knowledge of someone’s pre-existing condition could lead to their exclusion from insurance markets in the future or open the door to other forms of stigma or discrimination.The data generated by our smart devices are essentially a private good held by Big Tech companies that dominate social media, online sales, and search tools.
A single researcher analysing the experience of patients in their home country may be a good start, but it cannot rival the work of many researchers working together and drawing on the experience of many more patients from around the world – the key to the success of a number of cross-border collaborations.Commercial interests and incentives for innovation must be balanced with the need to build public trust through protection of privacy and integrity.
The European Union’s late-2020 proposals for the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act have many new features. These include third-party interoperability requirements for Big Tech “gatekeepers” –including social media and online marketplaces – in certain situations and efforts to make it easier for their customers to port their data to different platforms.
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