Big data is washing over Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, and industry circles are seeing it as the star business in the fifth wave of technological revolution.
According to international data centers, the total volume of global data is growing rapidly, by 50 percent per year.
IBM Corp estimates that the business opportunities offered by big data will generate US$18 billion next year.
With its latest big data analysis techniques, Chunghwa Telecom Laboratories’ “cloud dragon” system can draw up the movements of a criminal in just 10 seconds. Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma (馬雲) even plans to upgrade his group from a high-tech information and communication company to a high-tech big data company in the future, based on customers’ purchase data. It is evident that in the face of the big data revolution brought by cloud technology, the use of such data could indeed benefit mankind if we could only adopt a positive attitude when using it.
One of the special characteristics of the Internet is that every contact leaves a trace. Big data operators collect such “footprints” of data for overall analyses. Operators usually do not care about the willingness of the Internet users who left their online data footprint, how genuine the data is or whether the use of the data is a violation of their privacy or the related personal information protection laws.
If the data footprint left on the Internet is wrong or distorted, can a party involved demand that an operator remove the information to protect their reputation? Does a person have “the right to be forgotten” in the cyberworld? Clearly, we should consider some major issues behind the development of big data, such as Internet user privacy, personal information protection and the right to be forgotten.
Recently, US media have been strongly critical of Facebook, the world’s largest social network, for cooperating with several universities to conduct a secret experiment on “emotional contagion” on its users. The company’s Data Science Group secretly manipulated the messages of nearly 700,000 users for one week in 2012. Researchers found that users’ emotional states worked like an infectious disease and could be transferred to others via Facebook.
Since the company did not obtain users’ consent and conducted the study without their knowledge, many of the users were furious. However, the company says that every user signs an agreement on the use of data when applying for membership, and that the study therefore was not illegal. In addition, the purpose of the study was to improve the quality of customer services.
Although many people are optimistic about the onslaught of big data, it seems that it would be necessary for us to pay attention to such issues as Internet user privacy, personal information protection and the right to be forgotten. We are unable to erase our data footprint when we surf the Web, and our privacy may therefore be violated without our being aware. If vicious governments and companies make use of such data and try to monitor us through them, we will see an increasing number of cases similar to that of former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who uncovered classified US surveillance programs.
The Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法) was put in place prior to the occurrence of big data. It will hardly be able to resolve the privacy and safety problems online caused by the massive, diverse and booming big data. The government should therefore review and amend the related regulations, to look after both business opportunities and online safety behind the development of big data.
Ted Chiou is a professor in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at Yuan Ze University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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