Data mining and privacy
By Abbey Walsh, Aquinas College​
Feel free to raise your hands here, how many of you have done something that you wouldn't have done if someone was around? Maybe it was attempting that high note you'd never attempt in front of others, or trying out those new dance moves in front of the mirror?
It's completely normal to act free from expectations when alone, and within a modern world, this feeling can also translate across to the internet. However, are we ever actually anonymous online? Many people are startlingly unaware of the danger of the online world, especially when discussing privacy, and within a society where technology is constantly advancing, this ignorance cannot go unchecked.
Most of us have probably heard the term data mining or privacy breaches tossed around when discussing online privacy, but what do these terms really mean? Well, data mining is a practice used by big corporations where raw data is used to formulate conclusions about the individual behind the screen.
This information such as gender, race or sexuality or even interests is then used to create ads and content specifically targeted towards who they think you are. This may seem harmless at first, but these little pieces of information gathered without your consent have been nicknamed the new gold of the internet by billionaires and entrepreneurs such as Mark Cuban, due to its ability to aid companies in pandering to your interests, allowing them to sell more products but most importantly, ignoring your right to privacy.
This power that companies hold has also been evidenced to have the ability to alter and manipulate the moods, relationships and even opinions of individuals on their platforms. Take for example Facebook's social experiments run on users without their consent in 2014. By manipulating users streams and ads to show either gruesome and sad or happy and hopeful content, facebook's monitoring system concluded that the platform was able to significantly influence its users lives, creating and increasing chances of depression in individuals whose feeds were altered to show negative feed. These were real people, who facebook targeted and used to experiment on without their consent.
I know sometimes it's hard to talk about issues like this, especially without sounding like I want a permanent tinfoil hat over my head, but the EU itself, a major worldwide political group, acknowledged the threat of data mining in breaching privacy, creating a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to protect all citizens residing within the EU from having their data mined against them in a harmful or non consensual way. This legislation legally binds all countries and businesses dealing with EU citizens, and sets an amazing example for addressing this modern issue. As one of the EU largest trading partners, we as a country are in an ideal position to enact similar legislation to protect our own neighbours, brothers and sisters from this privacy risk.
And before I hear the excuse of well the EU are a huge global group and we are only one country Here's another example of a country with data protection legislation, our close neighbour: New Zealand. That's right, on December 1st 2020 New Zealand followed the EU's lead and introduced an updated privacy law that ensured any companies dealing with New Zealanders data were held to standards that ensured the protection of customers data and privacy. If a country 29 times smaller than us can take initiative, it's clear that we don't have to be a huge global political group. So, if this is a completely viable option for us, why, in the 8 years since major data scandals such as the facebook experiment took place, has nothing changed?
In part, I would argue that it is due to the ignorance of the significant threat this practice poses. Many times when I've had this debate I've been met with genuine and sarcastic questions along the lines of Why would apps want to spy on me? Why should I care if my ads and feed are personalised? Isn't that just convenient? and to that I ask you, what would you consider to be one of humanity's greatest strengths?
Some of you may list personal traits or characteristics you are proud of but I would argue the inherent ability of a human to learn and evolve, to debate and discuss as we do now is what sets us aside from that which we consider baser in nature. Sure, the polarisation of your ads may seem harmless at first but isolating your feed and showing content which only supports your views and opinions denies us the chance to learn and grow, and this polarisation can be extremely harmful in situations where people are already divided, such as within politics.
Technology is a wonderful and inspiring tool that has accomplished so much since it has come into force, but the lack of restrictions around data mining and manipulation through prominent media platforms is a serious threat to the upcoming generations of our world. People have more power than you can imagine, and whether it's doing a big thing such as writing to your local MP, advocating for data privacy laws, or small things such as restricting your phones permission to collect data and being aware of the effect your for you page is having on you, we all have the ability to be aware and make a difference.