Posts tagged ‘data privacy’
Getting Value from Your Data Series: It’s All About Your Data Ecosystem
By Marilyn Craig and Mary Ludloff
We’re back with the fourth post in our series on how to get value from your data, including how to ensure that new “data” and “analytics” products are designed for successful delivery to new and existing customers.
In the previous posts in this series, we discussed our methodology and what is required in terms of understanding your target customer—who they are and what they need—as well as making sure you have the right Team in place to work on the project. In this post, we are going to discuss how you build your Data Ecosystem:
- What is needed to ensure that data processes will support the new product(s)?
- How do you identify appropriate data partners and enhancements?
- What privacy- and security-related issues must you be aware of and address?
Trend #1: Digital Advertising Comes of Age and Continues to Propel the Growth of Data Brokers and Markets
By Mary Ludloff & Terence Craig
Authors’ Note: As promised, this is trend number one in our take on the top ten privacy trends or the more things change, the more they stay the same. Although similar to David Lettermen’s Top Ten lists, our list is not as funny (unless we get points for sarcasm). We would like to remind you that sifting through the media coverage, books, blog posts, and research studies has been no easy task and trying to understand how all of it fits into the larger privacy landscape has been even harder. Added to that, our list is sure to elicit a litany of trends that we missed. We certainly hope that it does and welcome your input in our comments section! Now, on with the trend number one!
It is safe to say that continued media attention (mostly negative) has not had an impact on the rising use of third party tracking mechanisms to collect personal information. According to the Web Privacy Census, an undertaking sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, which measures and benchmarks Internet tracking over time:
- The number of cookies discovered on the top 100, 1,000, and 25,000 websites are all significantly increasing. For example, in May of 2012 5,795 cookies were found on the top 100 sites and in October of 2012 the number reached 6,485.
- The percentage of cookies set by a third party host was 84.7%. In other words, most of us are being tracked by a host of parties that we have no data collection agreement with.
- The top trackers were BlueKai (the largest online auction marketplace), Rubicon Project (one of the larger real-time bidding systems that sells ad space on web pages), and Adnxs (the advertising exchange for advertising exchanges).
Privacy and Big Data—Update on the Update
By: Mary Ludloff and Terence Craig
We’ve been promising an update to our book, Privacy and Big Data, since the just pre- and mostly post-Snowden era. When we proposed and wrote the book it was to fill a void. At the time, there was a lack of mainstream attention to the issues of privacy by the media and a lack of understanding of the issues and implications we all face in the digital world. As tech veterans of long standing, we have seen our world transformed for better and for worse by our industry. Much of the “worst” we chronicled in our book and at the time its release, many relegated our book and ourselves to the “foil hat” and “black helicopter” brigade. Yes, that was a “we told you so” but we promise it’s the last one.
Then came the Snowden revelations which raised its own hailstorm of media attention, information, misinformation, and disinformation (primarily by our government officials, legislative leaders, and the President as well as the Prime Minister of the UK) on exactly how our data was being collected and what it was being used for. Cynics though we are, we wondered if digital privacy issues had finally reached a tipping point, that we would have a national conversation about civil liberties, how to fix FISA, what is the acceptable collection and use of our data by commercial and government entities, and moving forward, how our liberties and data could be protected from corporate and government spying. (more…)
In a pii (Privacy, Identity, Innovation) Conference State of Mind
By Mary Ludloff
Although this year has been extremely busy for us, Terence and I always find time for this event: The Privacy Identity Innovation Conference. Natalie Fonseca, the Co-Founder and Executive Producer of it, is the driving force behind its ongoing success. This year’s program focuses on:
“… the latest developments in areas like mobile, biometrics, the Internet of Things and big data. Learn about emerging trends and business models driving the personal information economy, and get guidance on developing strategies and best practices to build trust with your users.” (more…)
New Year (2014) Rumination: Death of privacy as we know it? Or inflection point signaling better things to come?
I am, and always have been, a glass half-full kind of gal. In fact, way back in September 2011 when Terence and I published our book on Privacy and Big Data, I was far more optimistic than he was on the future of privacy—of course, it’s easy to sound optimistic when your co-author states that privacy is dead. (And yes, we are still working on our book update but we do have day jobs and a significant release in the works so it is slow going but going it is.)
At that time, those in the “digital privacy know” characterized our book as a decent overview. Our intent at the time was to help those NOT in the “digital privacy know” get their arms around the privacy issues from a legislative, corporate, and government perspective. To our surprise, those not in the know included lots of folks in the high tech community! We did a number of interviews and dealt with informed and somewhat uninformed media folk—those in the mainstream focused on social media and those on the fringes (left and right) wanted to do deep dives into legal issues, government uses of data, and fourth amendment rights. Some seemed to think that we were members of the tin foil hat brigade, others that we were naïve, and still others that we were on point. (more…)
pii2013: Building Trust in the Data Driven Economy—Hope to see you there!
As entrepreneurs at a growing startup there are very few things that are exciting enough to divert even a tiny bit of our attention from giving our customers the world’s best streaming analytics technology. And while my co-founder Mary and I have been known to disagree on what those things might be, we are always in agreement that the Privacy Identity Innovation Conferences (pii) are the best conferences for bringing together leading voices from technology, science, and government for the critical discussion(s) of what Privacy and Identity mean in the age of the NSA, Facebook, and Internet of things. pii2013 is being held in Seattle this year to (as their website states):
“Explore emerging technologies and business models, and highlight strategies and best practices for building trust with users. From news reports of increasing government surveillance to stories about startups using customer data in ‘surprising’ ways, there’s no shortage of examples illustrating why now is an important time to talk about innovation and trust. It’s a critical conversation about the future of privacy, identity and reputation that you won’t want to miss.” (more…)
Privacy v Security, Transparency v Secrecy: The NSA, PRISM, and the Release of Classified Documents
Privacy, Anonymity, and Judicial Oversight are on the Endangered List
An age old debate has once again reared its very ugly head due to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance, PRISM, and the astounding lack of any rigorous oversight on the NSA’s vast data collection apparatus. While PatternBuilders has been incredibly busy, in our non-copious amounts of spare time Terence and I have also been working on our update to Privacy and Big Data (which is undergoing another rewrite due to new government surveillance revelations that for a while happened hourly, then daily, then weekly but certainly are far from over). It’s important to note that pre-revelations our task was already herculean due to mainstream media’s pick up on “all stories related to privacy” (a good thing) that often missed the mark on the technical side of the house (we often find ourselves explaining to non-techies just what meta data is which usually happens after someone on CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, etc., butchers the definition) or got tripped up by the various Acts, Amendments, state laws, EU Directives, etc., that apply to aspects of privacy.
Over the last few weeks as details about PRISM emerged, it’s become clear to me that main street America may still not understand the seismic shift that big data and analytics brings to the privacy debate. Certainly the power of big data and analytics has been lauded or vilified in the press—followers of our twitter feed are used to seeing the pros and cons of big data projects debated pretty much every day. We’ve (Terence and I) talked and tweeted about privacy issues as it applies to individuals, companies, and governments. Heck, we even wrote a book about privacy and big data. (more…)
Privacy, Big Data, Civil Rights, and Personalization Versus Discrimination: When does someone else’s problem become ours?
There has been a great deal of media attention on the benefits of big data (just look at our @bigdatapbi twitter stream) lately. Certainly, PatternBuilders has been busy helping financial markets become more efficient, working with data scientists on various research projects, as well as helping other businesses with their big data initiatives. In fact, there are a number of companies (like ours) that are making significant strides in reducing the costs associated with legacy big data systems, helping to move big data out of the early adopter phase and into the mainstream. But as technology innovates, there is usually some “bad” thrown in with all that good. Such is the case with big data and privacy.
Two thought provoking articles on privacy were published this month—both considering privacy through a civil rights prism. In “Big data is our generation’s civil rights issue, and we don’t know it,” Alistair Croll states that:
“Personalization” is another word for discrimination. We’re not discriminating if we tailor things to you based on what we know about you — right? That’s just better service.”
Privacy and Big Data: An Update is in the Works and We Want Your Input!
In July of 2011, Terence and I were doing our day jobs (which in startup-land is way more than 8 hours) and working on “Privacy and Big Data” during the evenings and weekends. It was, by all accounts (at least according to our friends and family), a lovely summer and we missed most of it! We spent “our” July, August, and September combing through research, studies, media reports, blogs (we stopped counting the number of pages when we got to 4,000) to put together a book that was our humble attempt to cover the full spectrum of the privacy landscape:
- Our rights and expectations of privacy historically and in the digital age.
- The current “state” of privacy regulations here (U.S.) and abroad.
- The players (governments, industries, movements, and companies) that have a stake in the privacy debate and their often contentious and competing agendas.
Big Data Makes Its Broadway Debut (Sort of) and Other News
What a week for big data in the news! Less than two to three years ago, it seemed like big data was the sole purview of “pioneer” companies and industries (like retail and financial services). Today, everyone is writing about it (follow us on @bigdatapbi for the news we come across) and we’ve gone from industry- or research-related “stories” to mainstream press reporting from outlets like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Forbes. But you really know you’ve made it when you’ve taken your metaphorical bow on Broadway.
Full disclosure: I am a theater maven. Love Broadway, love the theater, love going to New York City to see shows. So imagine my early morning pre-coffee surprise when I saw this headline in the Wall Street Journal: Big Data Hits Broadway. Somebody wrote and produced a play about big data? How could I not know about this? Who’s in the cast? Well… not quite! However, the slogan “Conquer Big Data” is on a sign gracing Times Square. As editor Michael Hickins points out in the article:
“As you can see from these roadside signs – one above Broadway in New York’s Times Square district, the other on Highway 101 between San Jose and Redwood City – Big Data has gone from bleeding edge to the edge of the highway.” (more…)
Big Data Big Analytics 