It is a common complaint that our normal expectations of privacy are being eroded by applications and websites asking for personal data or shamelessly harvesting information about our private lives.
Is this concept going to change as the digital native generation enters the workplace? Will it change as our demands require more invasive sharing of data in order to supply seamless and personalised services? Will we persist in retaining a high degree of personal privacy — and can we find a solution that keeps everyone happy?
Why would we share?
Your private data is yours alone, so why would you want to voluntarily share it? Well, as it turns out, you may find that services will come in two versions in the future: anonymised services, which require a lot of input and authentication to get to what you want (think online banking); and personalised, customised services that know exactly who and where you are and what you want (think Apple’s Siri or Google).
Security systems armed with the ability to identify regular users and the ways they move through a premises can also, conversely, identify an unknown visitor or unusual movement. This could lead to a more effective means of identifying potential intruders.
The benefits of such individualised services have been recently demonstrated by a company called Nuance, the firm behind the Dragon speech tool. Its Wintermute project looks to provide this type of customisation seamlessly across multiple platforms and services by storing your custom data in the cloud against a unique ID assigned to each user.
This, the company says, will ensure privacy whilst allowing fully customised service.
Managed properly, you might be willing to share the fact that you are an F1 Racing fan when shops or websites query your profile, but you may keep the fact that you are a Chelsea fan to yourself. This tailoring of how you release personal data may redefine what we consider to be private information.
Where to draw the line?
While setting up my own home network recently I ran into the issue of securing the communications locally within my home when controlling TV sets and multimedia devices. I was wrestling with the idea of what type of encryption to use when it occurred to me that I was encrypting the communication channel only out of habit. So what if someone across the road or next door can tell that I am watching BBC1? Is it really a privacy issue when they could just as easily look through my front window and see the same information?
This got me thinking that perhaps we have gone too far towards an attitude of “everything is private unless we say otherwise.” In some cases we impede speed, performance, or interoperability as a result of defaulting to a privacy-first point of view.
We need to find a natural equilibrium between the freedom of movement and ease of use of the services we use regularly and the privacy we expect to retain in our day-to-day lives.
This will, no doubt, be a unique balance for each of us, as we all have very different conceptions of what we consider to be private. It is likely, though, that this line will move much further away from “everything is private” and much closer to a midpoint between sharing and securing.
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I can see where you are coming from Joe, there are many aspects of our lives we work to keep private that when you stop and think about it probably really don’t matter. I would think that storing this information in the cloud would turn some company into a hacker pinata out on the internet, I prefer anonymous browsing not because I am guilty of any crime or planning something just because I am the kind of person that if I want to see information about a lawn mower I will go look for it and don’t want to have… Read more »
Privacy is much talked about issue thesedays. With the intoduction of digital age, the privacy issues have cropped up. CCTV cameras, secrutiy paraphernalia and other intruding gadgetry have invaded our lives like never before. I think there is need of the hour that the privacy has to be redefined in the wake of immense security concerns.
@Shehrbano Kamran: Privacy is something which is common and I do not think it can be re-defined as such but the way privacy is being taken care of can be re-defined.
(on the point of ad privacy, that drives me mad. Funny example though was recently when I was on the Livestrong charity’s website reading a cycling article (i’m a big cyclist) I saw a text ad from Google for EPO which I posted on Twitter. Funny)ANYWAY, know what you mean Jonathon, there’s all sorts of details we try to keep private that don’t necessarily matter. For instance, brining it back to surveillance, I don’t think most people (in the UK at least) mind being on surveillance cameras in the interests of security, even though their image is their private data… Read more »
Interesting way of looking at it, manshi. Still though, the way privacy is taken care of should be ‘very carefully’ I would argue.
Data privacy is not always handled as carefully as one would hope by organisations both large and small.
In an age of so much information, yes, and that seems somewhat inevitable. How many small businesses, honestly, know about data protection rules and their obligations? In big business the picture is slightly different — someone knows all the rules and puts policies in place but that knowledge isn’t necessarily shared among the majority of staff. We perhaps think more about how we protect our own data, rather than other people’s.
Can what we consider to be private data even begin to keep up with the pace of change in technology? I don’t know. Privacy legislation certainly can’t!
Its Wintermute project looks to provide this type of customisation seamlessly across multiple platforms and services by storing your custom data in the cloud against a unique ID assigned to each user.
@JOE AWUNI, thanks for the post. I am curious to know how safe is it to store custom data on the cloud because already there are so many security related concerns about cloud.
With the intoduction of digital age, the privacy issues have cropped up.
@Shehrbano Kamran, I totally agree with you. Digital devices have created lot of privacy concerns. For example many are worried about privacy issues related to Google Glasses. I think it would be very difficult to address those concerns.
How many small businesses, honestly, know about data protection rules and their obligations?
@Robert Brown, Not many small businesses know about data protection rules. I think special efforts needs to be done to educate such businesses about data protection rules. Small businesses should give high priority to data protection so that its customers dont get impacted.
@Sunita – It is interesting that the developments by Nuance are taking a tiered approach to the cloud based stored data in many ways for the reason of both privacy and security concerns. I think when we talk about clouds often they are all seen as being the same, when in reality every cloud is different in the same way as every corporate network is different. We will place our trust in trusted brands in the future no doubt or where we can have proof of security capabilities. Regarding SMEs and data protection there is much still to do.… Read more »
@Robert Brown: True it should be handled carefully but in a manner where there is transparency involved in it.
You are all right , Companies especially the small and medium size companies do not have any formal procedures for safeguarding digital information let alone data privacy. We often hear about personal privacy and copyright laws and not data privacy.
It would be interesting to see a poll of how many people believe there is privacy within the cloud. I have my doubts even with encryption done at the service provider level just because the service provider has the encryption keys or access to them. Perhaps the best you could hope for is to know who all has access to your data and monitoring that access. Earlier in the comments manshi was said that the way we handle privacy needs to be redefined. You could argue with enough pieces of data that was not necessarily PII you could identify a… Read more »
The fact that elements of data privacy are so seemingly out of our hands makes it a lot more difficult to properly, well, care about it.
Consider it done Jonathon!
@Robert Brown
Since data privacy is difficult to implement ,let us design what can be known as best practices and procedures of safeguarding individual company data privacy by adding a foote noteand access keys to most sensitive data as a stepping stone.
@Jonathan Lipscomb – everywhere you go on internet has a trace on you and what you do, that’s the reason behind you getting customized pop up messages. I too use a proxy to avoid these problems.
@Shehrbano Kamran – This world is full of tracking and monitoring, almost everywhere you go has a CCTV camera looking at you. I don’t see anything we could do, other than just ignoring them.
@Robert Brown – that happens I have no idea how, when you visit a site you see a bar on your right hand side with your latest Facebook posts. I don’t know how technically its possible, but it’s happening.
@JOE AWUNI – yes we expect the parties to keep our data safe and secure, but this doesn’t happened. I feel our information is communicated / sold to these marketing teams for promotional offers etc.
@Robert Brown – Yes many small companies sometimes don’t even know the meaning of data protection. It’s always good to ensure that you only give the relevant information required for that transaction or dealing.
@Robert Brown – Data we have multiplies every day, I assume the same applies to our data. There is not proof or electronic trace of the source of information hence you never know how a 3rd party got your data.
@SunitaT- Storing data on cloud is something we need to be careful, the type of data we store needs to be decided depending on the business. I think it’s best not to store customer information on cloud.
@sunita tirlapur – Google glasses is not yet on the market, once it’s out I am sure it will have many privacy issues. I don’t see any ways of minimizing these privacy problems.
@sunita tirlapur – Yes small businesses don’t know much about data protection, government should take the initiative to have awareness programs to minimize data protection breaches.
@George Brown – Data protection policies and guidelines need to be set for small companies to follow, to ensure they protect customer information the same way large companies do.
@Shehan Ahamed
I agree with you completely, however Data Protection Act applies to every business to keep records of individuals and they have a duty to provide the necessary security to protect the data in their care.
I think the rules and regulations for data protection needs to be same for all kind of firms. We only need better implementation where large companys do that for fear of loosing reputation but smaller firms are made to follow them strictly .
good point… it would make sense to have this aproach world wide…
I think with Google glassess we do not have to worry yet… as technology only in developing… maybe 2-3 years from now… but you right – many privacy issues with them… and in the future if they catch up and get on the consumers market…
Would you be willing to give up some of your privacy in return for faster, smoother service and or personalisation in a way that is customised to your own preferences?
If so, how much? Where do you draw the line?
Joe, interesting question… and it does make me think… line in the sand…
I think with Google glassess we do not have to worry yet… as technology only in developing
@Alexander Stephens, true technology is still developing but I think Google glass will become popular in another couple years. Infact many other companies like Baidu are developing similar products (Baidu eye). So once these products are released to market then I am sure they will create lot of privacy issues.
Yes small businesses don’t know much about data protection, government should take the initiative to have awareness programs to minimize data protection breaches.
@Shehan Ahamed, true. I think all the small business should come together and form an assosciation which will help them educate about the data protection methods.
I don’t see any ways of minimizing these privacy problems.
@Shehan Ahamed, I totally agree with you. I think only way to minimize these privacy concerns is ban the Google glass. Infact according to one sruvey one in five people want Google Glass banned because of serious privacy concerns.
thank you… I think google glassess did not capture the hype yet… but in few years it may… How I see it… Please, LMK what you think?
@Alexander Stephens – Ironically, a civil liberty intrusive ID card scheme would actually make it more easy to implement privacy for devices such as Google Glass. If we had a standard platform then we could have standardised agreed disclosure of certain datasets. This is why I find the Nuance idea interesting as it allows at least a voluntary means by which to achieve the same result. I don’t mind anyone on any street, anywhere knowing that my name is ‘Joe’ but I might not want to share my full name with everyone and I may want to keep my employer… Read more »
thank you, I see your point, and when I think you are right… yes… on the last part I could not agree more… for me batye is better…
President Obama on privacy following publicity of PRISM:
“I think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 per cent security and also then have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience,”
Richard Aldrich, a professor of international security at the University of Warwick:
“…we’re very rapidly accelerating to a point where we’re going to be in a transparent society,”
“Privacy is effectively a 20th century concept like the steam engine.”
yes, interesting but true as in any process nothing could be 100% so to say…
in Canada we have few small business clubs, but most of them it more like social tea party… last time I attended one… 5 min talk about security…. and rest just family chat… but you right… if the group get organized correct way they could help each other and share the info…. protecting data better way…