In What is GDPR?, Palmer was explaining how new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in Europe are affecting businesses all over the world. These new regulations are cracking down on the privacy that businesses offer to the everyday person in Europe allowing for more control over their personal data. The issue with these regulations is that they apply to anyone that does business with Europe citizens or in Europe territory. With these regulations in place companies where opting out of offering services to European customers because they did not want to apply these regulations to their own business model. The regulations are here to protect the customers personal information and identity online. The fact that these businesses are opting out of protecting their customer to make money is just a shame. In this Case Analysis I will argue that an ethics of care model shows us that the United States should follow Europe’s lead because the customer is the heart of anyone’s business.
In the ethics study But the data is already public, conducted by George Zimmer, we can see how a college mined Facebook for data on it class of 2010 graduates. The college mined this data with the intention of making correlations on its student body. The problem that the college faced was that, even with good intentions of removing any data that could identify someone, they did not remove all the data that they should of.
Zimmer’s argument is that, even though the information is public it still should not have been put out to the public in that manner. There was a lack of detail that went into the background ethics of this case before the information was made public. Another aspect of this case is that the collection and publication of the data was done without the consent or know all the individuals involved. This is practically the exact same issue that a lot of people are having with companies currently.
Many companies in this digital age are collecting, using, and distributing personal data that they have collected from their users. With the new digital age there is the least amount of friction in acquiring this data then there has ever been before. With the friction severely reduced there should be a heightened amount of security and restrictions on this data. The problem that we face is that there practically is none on all the data that can be personally identifiable. There are restrictions on data like social security numbers, credit card numbers, and stuff like that. However, this is not the only data that is personally identifiable. This can be show from Zimmer’s ethics study. Even with the information not provided that the college thought was personally identifiable, people where able to find out the classmates that where used and even the college that they attended.
In the case of the United States following the same GDPR as Europe, I think it is important that these regulations are implicated immediately. These regulations take a dramatic step in the right direction for how the people’s data is handled and distributed. It is hard to understand how much information is out there on someone and how little information can be used to identify someone. These regulations would help to ensure almost all the data that can be linked to someone is protected instead of the minimal amount of data that we are regulating currently. In current United States law, they are protecting the major factors of someone’s data instead of all the factors.
If the United States instead took up an ethics of care approach for the people then these major issues could be in part, resolved. This ethic of care approach would come in the form of regulations like the GDRP. But at the heart of it would be to protect the everyday person that has their information online. It would restrict the use and selling of user data unless the user has opted into that. It also would ensure that the users finally have a way to be forgotten and an easy way to access the data that they have online to have full control over it. This is the exact opposite of what was used in the study conducted on the Harvard students. The ethical care model is going to ensure that the people are cared for and their need are met. These needs would be regulations on data privacy, data use, and data ease of access. By forcing these regulations into law, we not only ensure American citizens needs are being met, we are also ensuring that other countries in the world are meeting the needs of the American citizens as well.
In Considering the ethics of big data research by Buchanan, they are exploring concerns with big data mining and user privacy. It was explained in the analysis that United States regulations have shifted to empower the research more than it has the individuals affected. The research conducted in the case was gathered from public areas to help identify people that are supporting a movement. However, the problem with this is not necessarily the people supporting the movement it’s the data being collected.
There is no doubt about it, big data research has given a lot of insight in many disciplines. These insights have led to breakthroughs. But, the lines between research and a breach of privacy are blurring more every day. Buchanan was hinting at this in their paper saying that at what point do we stop becoming an individual and are treated just as a data set. No matter how hard they try to “deidentify” someone there is power technology out there today that can identify someone off very little information, as can be understood from Buchanan’s observation.
In our current case this applies directly. Currently the United States is not empowering the individual but instead are focusing on advancing their data sets. This in turn is empowering businesses and the economy, in a sense. More and more we are seeing that data is being sold in unethical ways, as was in the case of the Cambridge Analytica scandal back in 2016 with Facebook, and I’m sure there are many more behind the scenes that we don’t know about. Businesses have forgotten about the heart of all this data, all of you. Leaving their morals behind they are continuing to collect and analyze data to further their business ventures on the mindset that this data is “public”.
People are starting to realize that their rights are being demoralized for financial gain and that is why they are pushing back. Europe has put in their GDPR to combat these businesses with no moral compass. It’s only fair that if someone wants to use your data that you have the right to have the hearsay on what can be done with it and when you want to opt out of it. The United States on the other hand, are still very late to this party. Instead of complying with these we are seeing that more and more United States based companies are choosing financial gain over customer privacy and protection. This can be seen when companies opted out of suppling good and services to Europe because of the strict regulation that followed the GDPR.
An ethics of care approach is really the best solution for all of this. With this approach the focus of business and government would shift from stuffing their pockets to ensuring that their people are safe and can adequately protect themselves. This approach is just as simple as placing regulations just as Europe did on American soil. These regulations would set fine lines between a user and a dataset. It would also ensure that you, the user, have say over your data at any point in time instead of just wondering what goes on behind closed doors.
In summary, I believe that ethics of care approach would restore the much-wanted privacy back into this digital age in America. By ensuring that people have a finite amount of privacy from the start and ensuring that people have control over their privacy, businesses would shift to a care approach towards the backbone of their business, the everyday user.
This is not a perfect approach, this are downfalls. The first downfall can be seen through the GDPR case study. The cost of doing this approach is going to be massive. Businesses are going to have to restructure their entire data models. Laws are going to have to be revised. All the current data that is out there is going to have to be restructured. None of this will be an easy task, nor will it be fast. But the main concern is that it will be better.
Another drawback to this will be from the researcher’s standpoint. There will be concerns about the amount of people that will opt into “public” data gathering research. The number of publicly mineable data will drastically reduce with this restructure causing a big loss in the big data department.
The other drawback to this approach could be the economy. When this shift to privacy takes place, you could expect the economy to take a big dip. A lot of emerging technologies come from big data research. However, this should be something can be bounced back from in no time.
Even with all these complications this task is achievable. It may not be achievable in a short amount of time but achievable, nonetheless. Think of it like the introduction of IPv6 address. It’s been around for years but most places still have not made the switch due to the fact they would have to restructure their entire network. This could all be implemented in due time.
References
Buchanan, E. (2017). Considering the ethics of big data research: A case of Twitter and ISIS/ISIL. Retrieved February 14, 2021, from https://odu.voicethread.com/myvoice/assignment/686127/submit?hideFooterAndNav=true
Zimmer, M. (2010). “But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook. doi:10.1007/s10676