Humanizing The Collection and Use of Data

May 20, 2023, by Paola Reyes

In the last few years, data has become one of humankind's best resources; as a result, the amount of information collected, and the type of sources and data has increased exponentially.

The mentioned increment has brought challenges to ethics, privacy, and ownership for both those who extract the data and those who are sharing it. Governments, companies, and people who share their data have concerns about these challenges, and some entities and companies are creating mechanisms to improve the distribution and use of data, as well as the protection of people’s privacy with the current goal of improving the data collection to have a better big data management experience in the future.

One factor that impacts the increase of big data and its analysis is how meaningful the exploratory analysis and predictions can be to understand the nature of the topic of interest. Additionally, the diversification of types of data that can be collected, which is structured and unstructured information from a vast number of sources such as social media, website interactions, surveys, and apps. Other factors are the emerging companies that focus on storing and analyzing data, such as Amazon Web Services and IBM. In addition, the new trend of use and popularity of AI and machine learning and its valuable applications.

As mentioned, data is growing every day and it is used by companies, scientists, governments, and others which brings concern on how to manage the ethics, privacy, and ownership of the information collected. The current challenge of this is to focus on who shares the data and who is using it. Let us look at them before exploring the challenges.

First, who is sharing the data? Since we were born, we have been sharing our information without even being able to say the word data. This was when our parents registered us as a citizen, and we got an identification number. From then on, we have been part of those who are sharing the data, and, in most cases, we do not even realize that we are doing it. People share information at surveys such as census every year. Also at schools, and universities when the institutions save records of our grades, location, contact, parents’ names, and others.

Secondly, who is using the data? Well, this is another long list to cover. Let us just mention some of them. As covered before, we start sharing our information since we are babies with the government so they can keep track of the growth of the population, regulate politics, and develop programs to improve the well-being of society. The government is also collecting data from studies that aim to monitor health outbreaks, eliminate potential dangers to society, and educate them to prevent infection transmission.

The challenges of data ethics involve both, who share the data and who is using it, and it is here where we identify the right and wrong of the interactions with the information. Data ethics can be defined as “the brand of ethics that studies and evaluates moral problems related to data, algorithms, and corresponding practices” (Floridi, 2016). Some of the current challenges are data-informed consent, privacy, ownership, and bias.

Have you ever read the terms and conditions when you update your iPhone or open a social media account?

Well, most of the users do not take the time to read the 3 pages of it and press the button: “I agree.” But what are we agreeing to? Sharing our information. This is a concern because all the information that we are producing on our cell phones has been used to make us spend more time on social media or to show us specific political campaigns based on the things that we like or agree on. Without knowing, we might be part of a group of people who have been influenced based on the algorithms.

I believe that if people know more about this “consensual” use of data, the use of social media will decrease. Let us think about a student’s day and its interactions with this concern and how it can affect her. So, Sophia opens a new social media account and agree to the terms and conditions. Next, she follows some friends, influencers, and stores, and she starts to interact with other publications. After a few days, she goes to the mall and when she arrived, she started getting notifications on social media about a store that is in that mall. Well, there is a high chance that her information has been shared, as well as her location, which makes the app send her that notification.

The previous example seems like is not a big deal but imagine how powerful it can be to have all her high school classmates’ information, location, and interest available to be used to influence teenagers. From spending some hours on social media and buying some products to making them believe in a misinformation spread that can put them in danger. The consent of data is not just limited to social media, some governments use the collection of data to control individuals’ actions. It happens in China, where the citizens have no control over the information being used and it is collected to spy on them and follows all their actions as posts on social media.

The mentioned informed consent connects with privacy and ownership because if we cannot control how our data is collected and used, private information such as our names, location, email, and phone numbers can be shared by people not having the right to decide if we want it to be shared or not, which violates individuals’ privacy. And, then we have ownership, not having the right to control the spread and use of our information takes down what ownership is.

Nowadays governments, banks, and stores collect data every second from individuals.

Is it our information safe? Do we need to worry about our personal information being in danger and not having control of our privacy and information ownership? Unfortunately, yes, our information is not 100% secure, specifically the data that was taken without our concern. Imagine your bank account information being attacked and the hackers having access to your personal information Does not sound like not fun, right? That is why the concern in this area is high and needs to get more attention.

Finally bias. Big data ethics have been affected by bias from the selection of data to the implementation of algorithms. For example, people applying for jobs and being selected. In the last years, a big set of algorithms has been used to scan resumes and identify who are those that will be a good match for the position and the company. But how does this algorithm work? Well, from big data collected from previous years, where for example there could be a high chance of more men than women in a specific field, but not because of woman’s capabilities but instead of women not being interested in this field or having cultural limitations to be able to be part of an academic problem related with that area of study.

I expected that in the following years, there will be more concern for individuals about sharing their data, which had started already but it will be a process for some people to realize the importance and the implications of the ownership and privacy of data. On the other hand, for governments and companies that collect data, I believe it would be a harder process to give more importance to the mentioned concern, especially in countries like China. My hope is that the pressure of society on this topic produces better policies and protection for the collection and use of individuals’ information.

Like others, global challenges, big data ethics, privacy, and ownership have a long path to go through in the following years. But I believe that some of the measures that can be taken care of programs, conferences, publicity, and talks that teach society about the concerns of their data and how it can affect them. Those can have a place in school as well as in each company. Another measure could be better regulations for terms and conditions of sharing data for companies as well as better policies that regulate the control of data use and real consequences for those who do not follow the requirements. And an international big data management organization that can serve as support for those citizens who are controlled by their governments.

As covered in the previous paragraphs, the increment of data has brought challenges to ethics. I strongly believe that humanizing the use and collection of data is a path that will take years to reach because it works not just for entities that used the information, it is teamwork from every person, company, and government. Each of them has their part in this process of creating an environment where the use of data follows and respects privacy and ownership.

References

Floridi, L., Taddeo M. (2016, December 18th). What is data Ethics? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2016.0360#:~:text=In%20the%20light%20of%20this%20change%20of%20LoA%2C,good%20solutions%20%28e.g.%20right%20conducts%20or%20right%20values%29.

McCabe, A. (2023, February 17th). The Ethics of Big Data. https://blog.hurree.co/the-ethics-of-big-data