Wherever we look, we are surrounded by data– ours, our families’, our bosses, our teachers’, our friends’. If we go anywhere, the likelihood is high that we are being exposed to someone else’s data, and others are being exposed to ours as we speak. We know that tech companies often use our search preferences for targeted advertisements, and we’ve all had that terrifying moment where something we were talking about just a few hours before happens to pop up on our TV screens or in our Spotify advertisements.
Another interesting happening is the development of a growing diversity of opinions on how comfortable people feel about this wide dispersion of their personal data. Some people are outspoken in their discomfort, while others express no opinion or even appreciate the sharing of their information, if it makes their existences more efficient or easier in some way. This, in turn, drives the question: what drives this vast variety of opinions regarding data sharing? I believe the answer to this question is that there are good and bad ways that data sharing could be used– ways that further the betterment of humanity as well as impeding on the privacy of individuals.
An example is the massive data leaks that have occurred on Facebook– how comfortable would you feel if you knew that your information, however sparse or full your account was with it, was out for somebody else to see?
However, the duality of the situation is this– how would you feel if researchers had access to this same data in order to cure you of a potentially life-threatening disease? BBC details a joint project between the United Kingdom and China (which has come under some fire for its use of public facial recognition technology) to monitor Parkinson’s disease.
Essentially, you’re putting the same data in the hands of researchers, whom you don’t know, as you would be putting in the view of complete strangers if your data was leaked to the general public through Facebook. I find this duality of our co-existence with the data of ourselves as well as other people fascinating– it proves that there is indeed no simple answer to the problems that have surrounded data monitoring and surveillance for years, and which will likely continue for as long and we continue to develop innovative ways to increase efficiency within our daily lives.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50685599