I had a letter to the editor published in Nature on big data and privacy.
Data protection: Big data held to privacy laws, too
Stephen Wilson
Nature 519, 414 (26 March 2015) doi:10.1038/519414a
Published online 25 March 2015
Letter as published
Privacy issues around data protection often inspire over-engineered responses from scientists and technologists. Yet constraints on the use of personal data mean that privacy is less about what is done with information than what is not done with it. Technology such as new algorithms may therefore be unnecessary (see S. Aftergood, Nature 517, 435–436; 2015).
Technology-neutral data-protection laws afford rights to individuals with respect to all data about them, regardless of the data source. More than 100 nations now have such data-privacy laws, typically requiring organizations to collect personal data only for an express purpose and not to re-use those data for unrelated purposes.
If businesses come to know your habits, your purchase intentions and even your state of health through big data, then they have the same privacy responsibilities as if they had gathered that information directly by questionnaire. This is what the public expects of big-data algorithms that are intended to supersede cumbersome and incomplete survey methods. Algorithmic wizardry is not a way to evade conventional privacy laws.
Stephen Wilson
Constellation Research, Sydney, Australia.
steve@constellationr.com