Data Privacy & Consent

DATA PRIVACY!

Data Privacy refers to the right of individuals to have control of the collection, use, and sharing of their personal information including their health records, financial details, and online behaviour.

Key Issues

Maintaining data privacy is often a difficult issue in the current world as technology has advanced extremely rapidly. One of the new issues that has come to light is the use of AI and big data, when chatting with your AI the algorithm has become increasingly advanced to the point where it is able to infer sensitive data including health status or political views from your seemingly harmless data. Furthermore, surveillance capitalism has also become a human rights issue in the digital age. Companies monetize user personal data to sell to other companies, often without consent of the user.

Challenges

• Large pools of data allow for increased risks of privacy breaches
• Anonymous data if linked with public data can be identified
• Data is constantly shared between apps, websites, and devices

Best Practices to Enhance Data Privacy

• Data minimization, only collecting necessary info
• Using encryption along with secure storage
• Thoroughly reading data usage policies

CONSENT!

Consent refers to the informed agreement by individuals to allow for the collection and usage of their personal data. Consent can be explicit, which can be given through clear actions such as checking a box, or it can be implicit which is assumed through actions such as continuing to use a service.

Limitations of Consent Models

Privacy issues continue beyond consent, many questions we have about our digital interactions are often extremely difficult to get answers to as digital world is getting increasing complex. Currently only 9% of users read the terms of agreements before agreeing as privacy policies are often lengthy and readers do not have the patience. Furthermore, there is no alternative is users do not want to agree to the terms. If they do not want to agree they simply wont be able to use a service. If users do choose to consent they lose control of how thier data is shared with third parties. There is no real way to “track” exactly where user data goes after the user consents to privacy policies.

Consent must be

• Informed
• Specific
• Revocable

Photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash