The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is a European Association’s new security law that came on May 25, 2018. From that event, various security advocates have required the US to act accordingly and pass its extensive law or guideline that fulfills or surpasses the guidelines in the GDPR. However, experts of the GDPR keep up that these guidelines will force massive expenses on the economy and degrade the user experience on the web. I think even with these flaws it would be a good idea to adopt a policy like this in the U.S. I believe that Europe is very good at keeping its countries fair, safe, and united. I feel this is not the same for the U.S. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that Utilitarianism shows that the United States should follow Europe’s law when it comes to privacy because Europe focuses more on privacy than profit.

The first article I will use to prove my argument is Elizabeth Buchanan’s “Considering the ethics of big data research: A case of Twitter and ISIS/ISIL.” The first thing that stood out to me is the use of the IVCC model on Facebook. The IVCC model, also known as the Iterative Vertex Clustering and Classification model, is a data search method described by Matthew Curan Benigni, Kenneth Joseph, and Kathleen Carley for locating ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) supporters on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms. That is a method’s enhanced abilities to identify any individual or group within a social media platform’s networks, it’s possible that any law enforcement or intelligence agencies will develop this method to identify and distort any suspicious activities or communications on Twitter for authority and security reasons. The IVCC approach allows for the recognition of any individual users and groups. This software could be good for the community, but also be bad if it is used in the wrong way. No computer software is 100 percent accurate, so there always be a chance that the software identifies the wrong person as a threat. Law enforcement and government organizations may be using the presence of terrorists on social media sites as an excuse to do something that everyone in the country is frightened of. They could do things such as spy on innocent social media users. The people behind this software would be able to concentrate on everyone else as well as ISIS/ISIL followers and to gather information on innocent individuals and businesses for personal and financial benefit. They may even focus solely on the innocents and never target those they claimed to be focusing on or use to detain anyone they suspect is a member of the ISIS/ISIL militarist group, even if it was a mistake or they lacked proof. Although, there could be some people on other social media platforms that support and wish to be a part of an enemy militarist organization. If law enforcement hadn’t used the IVCC approach to track down and identify supporters or members, people who are threatening our security would have had the upper hand. Employees and authorities may be considering the larger benefit of not only the people on Twitter but the entire country of the United States of America. This relates to Consequentialism because the theory of consequentialism focuses on the consequences of the actions people take. Law enforcement here has two choices. They can use this information to do good in the community that will have positive consequences to follow. Bad guys will be off the street, and

people’s safety will become more secure. They can also choose to abuse this power which will have bad consequences, such as people not feeling that they are safe and innocent people who have had their privacy violated. If the U.S. were to adopt privacy laws such as in Europe, I believe people would be safer from law enforcement and people being able to blackmail them or for personal gain.

The second article is from Michael Zimmer’s with a quote, “But the data is already public.” Zimmer discussed the T3 project. The T3 project, also known as the “Taste, Ties, and Time” project, was created by a few researchers with the Berkman Center for Intern and Society in the fall of 2008. The researchers included two Harvard University professors, Jason Kaufman and Nicholas Christakis, one UCLA professor, Andreas Wimmer, and two Harvard University graduate students with a degree in sociology Kevin Lewis and Marco Gonzalez. This project came about by constructing a dataset that consists of a large quantity of profile information from Facebook accounts that also includes many Harvard College students. Instead of using these people’s private data for their benefit or to misuse, they took every effort to hide the student’s personal information and secure the privacy of their customers’ data. This strategy backfired because the source of each student’s data was easily identifiable and traced back to their college. The researchers decided to withdraw their dataset and attempted to make the information they gather for the following year know the flaws in the project. They faced some worries from college students about how people would be able to access personal data and information about them without having to do any hard work. Even when the T3 project was a complete failure, the idea of the study was interesting, and the researchers genuinely care about the privacy and security of their fellow college students and their personal information. Individuals who practice utilitarianism think that the consequences of their activities should be more positive than negative. I believe that the researchers in this project used utilitarianism to make their decisions because they could have decided to continue their study even though the students felt uncomfortable with their data being posted. I don’t think that anything the researchers did violate any privacy laws, so they did not have to take the project down, but they chose to anyways to minimize the suffering of those whose data was posted online. Although the “Taste, Ties, and Times” project had a negative outcome, the researchers believe that the project’s action or thought was more focused on the happiness of college students being able to have their data secured from unknown, outside sources rather than greed and using the college students’ data for their own financial and business gain. This can be used to further my argument because U.S. lawmakers should be able to apply this concept to making their laws as well. I believe the law in the U.S. usually favors upper class people or the rich. I believe they capitalize off lower- and middle-class citizens, especially in a technological aspect. I think a lot of the privacy laws are made to protect citizens but instead, businesses end up exploiting them and profiting off them.

The United States should unquestionably have a comprehensive and foundation for federal privacy law. While such a law could take different forms, it should give many of the same foundation rights and safeguards that exist in Europe. The GDPR would be a great basis for this privacy law. Many of these principles are derived from key American concepts (particularly the 1973 Fair Information Practices Act), such as the right to view, remove, or update one’s information, as well as the right to object to certain forms of processing. In this case analysis, I argued that Utilitarianism and Consequentialism show us that the United States should follow Europe’s lead because Europe focuses on privacy and not profit. I also believe companies should not be able to force their consumers to hand over their personal information just because things do not always go as planned and I feel these policies can protect innocent web users from this.