Big data consists mainly of data that is openly available, created and stored. It includes public sector data such as national health statistics, procurement and budgetary information, and transport and infrastructure data. While big data may carry benefits for development surveillance camera initiatives, it also carries serious risks, which are often ignored. In pursuit of the promised social benefits that big data may bring, it is critical that fundamental human rights and ethical values are not cast aside.
Expanding beyond publicly accessible data
Along with other security systems humanitarian organisations and UN agencies, one key advocate and user of big data is the UN Global Pulse, launched in 2009 in recognition of the need for more timely information to track and monitor the impacts of global and local socio-economic crises. This innovative initiative explores how digital data sources and real-time analytics technologies can help policymakers understand human well-being and emerging vulnerabilities in real-time, in order to better protect populations from shocks.
UN Global Pulse clearly identified the privacy concerns linked to their use of big data and the impact of privacy in “Big Data for Development: Challenges & Opportunities” and have adopted Privacy and Data Protection Principles. While these are positive steps in the right direction, 16channel dvr
more needs to be done, given the increasingly complex web of actors concerned, the expanding scope of their work, the growing amount of data that can be collected on individuals, and the poor legal protections in place.
Increasingly, big data includes not only openly available information but extends to information collected by the private sector. This includes Twitter feeds, Google searches, and call detail records held by network providers. The efforts of groups such as UN Global Pulse are focussed on opening access to private sector data; UN Global Pulse noted this “challenge” and have been encouraging enterprises to participate in “data philanthropy” by providing access to their data for public benefit.
Dangers of big data
While access to such data is posited as opening opportunities for development, it also has the potential to seriously threaten the right of individuals to keep their personal information private.
If private sector data falls into the wrong hands, it could enable monitoring of individuals, identification and surveillance. Despite guarantees of anonymisation, the correlation of separate network camera
pieces of data can (re)identify an individual and provide information about them that is even more private than the data they consented to share, such as their religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. If this were to happen in certain contexts the consequences could have tragic impacts, especially if the data concerned relates to vulnerable groups such as minorities or refugees, as well as societal groups including journalists, social dissidents and human rights advocates.
Post je objavljen 22.08.2014. u 10:15 sati.