Protection to Use Data

There is no surprise that with everything because more digital, so is everyone’s personal information. While the users should watch what they upload to the internet, it is also up to the big tech companies to protect the confidential information of their users. A user of Facebook of Twitter rely on professionals at these companies to keep their information from getting in the handles of the wrong people or being misused by trusted people. The European Union took it upon themselves to establish a regulation that companies that operation within European countries must abide by. This regulation is called GDPR, general data protection regulations, and aims to inform the users of when their data is being collected, what it is being used for, and the right to know when they information gets hacked into. GDPR give the individuals more control over their information and what happens to it. In this case analysis it will be established that deontology shows how the United States should follow Europe’s lead with the GDPR and give individuals more control over their personal information.

Analysis of Elizabeth Buchanan

Technology has advanced significantly in the last decade, however the regulations that should govern its use has not. The last time the United States set federal regulations on human research protections was back in 1991 (Buchannan 2017). Without these regulations, big data is not obligated to provide its users with the opportunity to consent to the use and collection of their data. Big data being allowed to do what they pleased with user’s information and data increases the risk of privacy violations. Recently federal regulations have been revised to include restricted to data research within the technology realm. Twitter is an example of a company that allows big data research to use the information of Twitter users for their research projects. Twitter and big data prioritize the individuals and believe that the users that are subject to their research must be treated in an ethical manner.

When social media platforms and big data research organizations follow federal regulations for collecting and analyzing user’s information, they are obeying the GDPR regulations established by the EU. Data protecting and preventing privacy violations of individuals should be treated as a priority when it comes to doing research on a set of individuals. Even though the GDPR is set for individuals living within the EU, when big data collects information from a vast amount of people on social media, some of those people may end up in the EU. When looking at article 4 of the GDPR, big data in the context of the article from Elizabeth Buchanan follows a processor for data handling, while Twitter would be the controller. Twitter can control what happens and who can have access to the user’s information. When granted permission, big data organizations process the information they are given on behalf of Twitter. Big data organizations are not the issue, because they can provide helpful advancement and improvements to newly developed technologies. However, it is how they go about getting the information that raises an issue.

A Deontology Viewpoint

Taking a second viewpoint to the matter at hand, deontology views the actions taken by Twitter and big data companies as a question, why did they do what they did and what were their motives for doing it? After analyzing the motives of their actions, a deontologists can then determine if their actions where right or wrong. A famous philosopher, Immanuel Kant, had a different position on deontology called categorial imperative. The famous golden rule, treat someone how you would want to be treated, cam be applied to every aspect of life. In the context of Twitter and big data, the companies should act and treat their customers or consumers with the same amount of privacy as they would want someone else to do to them. When someone that is part of big data and violates the privacy of a user, they do not expect someone else to violate their privacy too. However, even though someone may not repeat the action back, it is still not a good action to take. When the big data organizations follow an ethical code and respect their user’s privacy, because they would not want someone violating their own privacy, it is viewed as a good action in the viewpoint of Immanuel Kant.

Analysis of Micheal Zimmer

In 2008, there was a group of researchers that took profile data collected from Facebook of an entire class of college students and released them publicly (Zimmer 2010). While the researcher tried to take the steps necessary to protect the privacy of these students, the University of where the data came from was quickly discovered. This placed the privacy of the students at risk. Throughout the article Zimmer discusses the failure to adhere to a set of ethical standard from the Tastes, Ties, and Time project, T3. The three crucial issues from the T3 project was the amount of information collected of the students, improper access to that information, and unauthorized secondary use to the information. T3 collected information of over 1,500 students and the activities those student did to their profiles over a four-year span. This could be changing profile picture, update relationship status, or uploading photos to Facebook profile. All of this information was then stored onto one, single database. Then all of this information on the single database was able to be accessed by unauthorized individuals. T3 not having proper protocols in place for the database allowed for anyone to be able to access the data within the database. In information from the database also had the issue of being collected for one purpose but then being used for a second purpose without authorization from the user.

The T3 project violated the GDPR because of unauthorized use of data, amount of data collect, and not informing users of secondary use of information. “Consumers are also promised easier access to their own personal data in terms of how it is processed, with organizations required to detail how they use customer information in a clear and understandable way” (Palmer 2019). T3 violating the regulations established by GDPR would result them with a minimum fine of 10 million euros or a maximum of 20 million euros. The GDPR was established to give the users more control over their personal information that is on the internet. Restricting what companies like Facebook can do with a user’s personal information would prevent issues from the T3 project from happening again.

A Deontologist Mindset

When a company does something either for themselves or for their customers, the ultimate reason they should always abide by is called the categorial imperative. The T3 project should have acted in a moral standpoint at all times. Violation to people’s privacy are caused by a negligence of the company that is holding onto the information, there is a lack of ethical principle in the company. Imanuel Kant would have the mindset that a company should respect the dignity of others as people themselves and not as a mean to a goal or milestone. The T3 project that allowed for the secondary use of the student’s information, did not want to waste their time with sending out another round of consent forms to the students. The project did not treat the users with any moral respect and ended up violating several privacy protection policies. Companies like T3, should always that the necessary steps to ensure they are treating their customers with the respect they deserve relating to their privacy.

Concluding

After analyzing all the articles, it can be concluded that for the protection of the citizen of the United States, a regulation similar to GDPR should be developed and implemented a soon as possible. Examples from the T3 project, provide what would happen to user’s information when regulation are not in place to limit what big data companies can do with collected information. Twitter would be another example, however, for what it would look like when social media platforms and big data companies prioritize individual consent and follow a set of ethical guidelines. Organizations should not have full reign of people’s information because it will result in privacy violation and misuse of personal information. In the end, the case analysis provide several examples as to why the United States should adopt the GDPR or develop their own regulation because it would give better security to American citizens. Have you ever experienced a violation to your personal information by social media platforms?

References

Buchanan E (2017) Considering the ethics of big data research: A case of Twitter and ISIS/ISIL. PLOS ONE 12(12): e0187155. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187155

Palmer, D. (2019, May 17). What is GDPR? Everything you need to know about the new general data protection regulations. ZDNET. https://www.zdnet.com/article/gdpr-an-executive-guide-to-what-you-need-to-know/

Zimmer, M. “But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics Inf Technol 12, 313–325 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9227-5