The idea of data privacy trickles down to how, as individuals, we are working towards keeping our data safe. This is, however, a challenge to most. In an era when almost everyone is on social media and compelled to share their lives there, it might be hard to ensure one’s privacy. Data regulation policies have been implemented to ensure that the platforms we share our data with safeguard it and protect our privacy. But is this the case?
While data regulation policies focus on making data usage clear, organizations have found loopholes to use various activities. Still, they remain subject to these data protection regulations. Social media platforms collect data and use it to personalize ads. Yes, you can choose not to have personalized ads by disabling the creation of an ad ID on your Microsoft device, but that doesn't mean you won’t get ads. You will still get them, but they won’t be entirely relevant to you.
Certain aspects of privacy need to be ensured. One can focus on retaining their privacy by adopting such approaches. One is on differential privacy. Under the idea of differential privacy, one can collect data and analyze it, but linking that data to the owner becomes challenging. This would be a data privacy measure that favors the data owner. In machine learning, the model's output should include differential privacy to protect the data owner. Anyone who views the output would not be able to tell whether certain individuals contributed their data to the model. But that is just a machine learning area.
A concern about how one shares their data is how the data will be used. Anyone can contribute their data as long as it is intended to help them. This mostly pertains to the health industry. While people can willingly provide their genome information to help with research to identify which health concerns run in their family, they might have reservations if the data is unclear. Insurance companies can use sane data to set insurance rates. This makes people more reluctant to share their data freely.
But is sharing data a mistake?
Think of the current pandemic and the steps Google has taken to enable contact tracing to identify people who have come into contact with infected individuals. The field of data collection and tracking can help people determine whether someone they encounter has been infected, thereby enabling them to take measures to protect their health. However, the same data can be wrongly used if it is not protected. However, most people were angered by the idea that the contact tracking feature was added without their consent. However, this raises the tension between personal privacy and public health. It is a call for social and regulatory policymakers to decide how to approach this issue. Should the side taken be on public health protection or privacy protection?