back to article 'Privacy is DAMAGING to PROGRESS' says Irish big data whitepaper

More than 350 Irish boffins have signed a white paper calling for nothing less than a “Magna Carta for Data”. The Insight Centre for Data Analytics says it wants to “put Europe on the road to fair and relevant legislation”, but most of the language sounds like what it really wants is to water down privacy rights in favour of …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wot?

    I am ever so excited to live in a world where knowing the colour of my panties and the number of times I go to the loo every day will contribute to solve world hunger, climate change and terrorist extremisms... ahem.

    Well so long and thanks for the fish, I'll grab my towel and hike out before the irish vogon hordes start reciting big data poetry.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Wot?

      It is a wonder that they didn't cite the 8th Century Félire Óengusso (In Irish naturally) as a reason for not wanting privacy.

      Ok, It is Friday and all that.

      1. dogged

        Re: Wot?

        How does a big list of saints days and martyrs make a case against privacy?

        Or are you suggesting that it is no less relevant than the bullshit excuses they were paid to trot out?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Angel

        Re: Wot?

        Oh well, even the catholic priests are bound to protect the privacy of a confession, and can't use those data to perform analytics on sins and sinners... unless the Vatican has a secret Big Data Analyis Center well hidden in Rome...

      3. Michael 28
        Devil

        Re: Wot?

        DON'T ....GIVE....THEM ....IDEAS!!!!!! God knows Michael d Higgins is noted for his cupla focail

  2. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    On the one hand

    It's comforting that these morons with EUR signs in their eyes are still all in Eire and not here.

    On the other hand - that's not far enough :-(

  3. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Windows

    Go on, go on, go on... oh!

    I thought this was a lost Craggy Island script. Very humourous.

    But it's not, is it?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Why don't they just replace the word : 'progress'...

    With the words : 'making boatloads of money'...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Gold Rush for people's data....

    They should just have said: "there's a lot of money *we* could make if you handle us all of *your* data (all of your data are belong to us!), thereby we don't want anything stop our Gold Rush".

    But the very idea of privacy stems from the idea that some data (and not a little portion of them), can be used *againt* you if easily and legally available to others.

    That's for example why politicians and friends try to protect *their* privacy far beyond any legal ground, for example when it's data that should be available to the public because it's the citizen and tax-payer that pays for those.

    But of course it's ok if *your* privacy is broken for "security" and "business" reasons... Be sure that "someone" privacy will still be very well protected.... while asking for yours to be removed.

    There's a moment in the "Truman Show" movie that summarize it all. It's when the interviewer thanks the director for the interview, noting how much he is careful about *his* privacy - just, she can't note the hypocrisy of it, because he reached the very success he's interviewed for, and he's making a lot of money depriving someone of his privacy utterly. Is this our future world - just like Truman's fake little island?

  6. Crisp

    Does a person own all of the data they generate, for example?

    If they don't. Then who does?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does a person own all of the data they generate, for example?

      I may agree that is I generate some data in a transaction with you - you should be allowed to process those data - even for business purpose.

      Problems arise when you decide to share those data outside you and me, because the transaction was between us, and not third parties. And for analysis beyond the scope of the transaction that originally generated them.

      Say I submit my blood for analysis. Well - can you perform other analysis beyond what was asked for, and transfe/sell those data for other reasons than informing *me* about my health status?

      There's a lot of interesting data in my blood (and anybody else) - who's the owner of those data? If I wear sensor that monitor *my* body, who's the owner of those data?

      But even in simple business transactions, can someone force me to allow him on her transfer the portion of my data in the transaction to a third party?

      I've no issue if they sell the data about how many milk bottles they sold in a week: I'm worried if they sold someone else how many milk bottle *I* bought in a week.

      They talk about "anonymization", but they very well know that anonymous data are of very little use. To correlate them proficuosly, you need to attach them to a unique identifier. Even if this ID is "anonymous", the very data attached to it can be used to get to the person behind the ID.

      That's, for example, why "messaging" apps using the telephone number as the ID are valued billions, even if they are crappy software for a crappy service. The value is in the unique IDs, and the links among them.

    2. Down not across

      Re: Does a person own all of the data they generate, for example?

      Damn right they own it. The corporation of course would love to own it to make money out of it hence this farce about privacy damaging their business.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does a person own all of the data they generate, for example?

      Deciding an individual does not entirely own all the data they generate does not imply someone else does own part share in it. Or, more pertinently, that there is a right for a third party to exploit it for their own profit without consent

    4. ShortLegs

      Re: Does a person own all of the data they generate, for example?

      I wonder what the answer to that would be if the data in question was a film, and the 'person' was Sony Motion Pictures.

      So, yes, a person does own all the data they generate.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well yes, privacy does impede progress

    If your definition of progress involves getting everyone hooked on free stuff, while collecting and monetising data about everything they do.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "'Privacy is DAMAGING to PROGRESS"...

    So lets have more of that Lite Touch Regulation lads. Just like the banking system! Our lobbyists will be around soon to help you toothless regulators write some laws! Meanwhile enjoy the cutting-edge privacy and data regulation hub of Ireland, situated not far from the home of Father Ted ...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/05/this_is_not_the_one_stop_shop_youre_looking_for/

  9. John G Imrie

    We have progressed so rapidly that the term ownership is obsolete

    Tell that to the music and movie businesses.

  10. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Devil

    Looks like the Irish data protection commissioner has got to work on letting Uncle Sam ransack servers in Ireland belonging to companies which have US parent companies and nobody has to have uncomfortable arguments in public.

  11. Eric Olson

    I love the black or white logic here...

    The reality is that individuals have been generating data for use by others since the first sensory organ evolved. As humans, we've taken that to a whole new level with using technological methods to convey private or personal thoughts, feelings, affiliations, etc.

    Already we have defined the line between public and private, and usually by saying, "In my home not visible to others, it's private. Standing naked on the road waving a sign saying 'Putin for Supreme Leader of the World' is public." In short, you do it in a public space and someone can detect (correctly or not) and you no longer are the owner of that data point.

    We just haven't caught up to what that means in an online world. I can't imagine anyone ever believed that their credit card purchases, for example, would not at least be leveraged by the issuing bank or credit card company to develop a profile that could be used for tailored marketing. And you the cardholder did not "own" that data, which is why laws were created to limit what the actual owner of the data could do with it and how identifiable it could be. Of course, there are folks who claim that they own their purchase data, but that would have been a laughable claim 100 years ago when you went down to the local store to purchase you daily supply of hair tonic. The shopkeeper would know who you are and they would use your purchase habits to ensure that the hair tonic was always in supply, and may even suggest a different tonic if the other one wasn't working.

    So maybe rather that just saying, "Hur dur, that's my data," and then accusing everyone else of trying to shaft you by taking your public actions and creating a profile of you, you take steps to understand just what kind of impression you make in the world, what it means to perceptions of you, and what you can do to limit additional construction of that profile if you find it objectionable. However, I will say that our transactional economy and human nature mean that every interaction, every glance, and every facial tic gives away way more than you think.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I love the black or white logic here...

      I think there is a world of difference between yesterday's friendly local shopkeeper knowing what your "usual" was, and the ability to collect much more personal habit data than before; which means there is an emergent issue. One that means comparisons with the past prove less useful than would be ideal. When someone has access to and hold information that effectively profiles an individual then morally that is the individual's data they have extracted, not theirs to benefit from. Unless that person has given explicit permission for that data to be used.

      1. Eric Olson

        Re: I love the black or white logic here...

        I think there is a world of difference between yesterday's friendly local shopkeeper knowing what your "usual" was, and the ability to collect much more personal habit data than before; which means there is an emergent issue.

        I don't disagree with the idea that the ability to collect the data and disseminate it beyond the shopkeep is greater than before. Or at least the velocity. However, there was nothing other than social capital at risk that prevented the shopkeep from telling every third customer that you were buying hair tonic at an astounding rate, and then go further and speculate as to the why or cause. Maybe he'll remember another data point from gossip or conversations with you that led him to believe the hair tonic isn't for your scalp, but maybe the base of the tonic is spirits and you're a drunk.

        That's how personal information was disseminated before: through the use of individual observation or interaction, conversation with others who might have observed or interacted at the same or different time, then a "profile" of you, the hair-tonic swilling drunk, would be making the rounds in town. Your best bet to find it out would be the stares or the weird looks you got, and there's a chance that your social standing might take an undeserved plunge.

        I would say that since relatively accurate profiles are the only thing of value to the credit card companies today, they have no profit-driven reason to create a false narrative about your hair-tonic purchases. That's not to say malicious uses can't be found for accurate profiles either, but all this really represents is a technological adaptation to a human behavior that probably separated us from the primates: the ability to assess, create, store, and disseminate thousands of interactions with countless combinations of our social group to devise a usable, actionable profile that could be used for a variety of things beyond just getting laid and filling the belly.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I love the black or white logic here...

      There are also limits on business exploitation of what is done in a public places. For example, in many jurisdictions you can't take photos of people in public places and sell them for profit - or use it freely - unless you obtain a "release" from them. The fact that you walk in a public places doesn't allow anybody to take "ownership" of your "image data" and use them as he or she wish.

      The same also applies to buildings, even if visible from a public place. And in some states, it was extended to public buildings, you are not allowed to sell images of them for profit unless you obtain authorization.

      As someone else noted here, it's funny that on one side companies ask for more protection of *theirs* copyright and IPs, while on the other wants every bit of data from *yours*.

      I guess I'm going to copyright myself so they can't use any data of mine. After all, each human being is unique, thereby there can't be any "prior art" - just homozigote twins may have some issues...

      1. Eric Olson

        Re: I love the black or white logic here...

        There are also limits on business exploitation of what is done in a public places. For example, in many jurisdictions you can't take photos of people in public places and sell them for profit - or use it freely - unless you obtain a "release" from them. The fact that you walk in a public places doesn't allow anybody to take "ownership" of your "image data" and use them as he or she wish.

        I think it depends on the photograph or recording. If you are purposefully posing or otherwise are the subject of a picture or recording, then yes, you are likely going to sign a release for commercial use of it. Alternatively, you are participating in a commercial venture in hopes of being compensated for your time spent and your image. However, and you can demonstrate this in most parts of the world just by looking at the newspaper, if you are another face in the crowd, identifiable or not, you will not be asked for a release, you will not be able to sue for use of your image, and you most definitely will not be able to have your image removed from said image or video if it's used in the future. You can try to sue, but being as you were background or otherwise incidental to the image, there is nothing for you.

        Google was pushed into allowing people to be blurred out in their Street View product, but that was likely due to the "focused" nature of the image. If you are just one of two or three people, looking directly at the car as it passed, it could be said you were a subject to a reasonable person, especially if it was taken out of context. However, there is also the reasonable person standard that Google leaned on for pictures of a house or the interior through large picture windows. In those cases, it was argued (successfully, I believe) that if the homeowner wanted privacy, they would close the drapes or otherwise obscure things on their property. Without such an exemption or limitation, any single person on the street could be held liable for taking an otherwise innocent or incidental picture showing your auto-erotic asphyxiation routine just by recording their passing or taking a selfie or group photo at an inopportune time.

        In these and other cases, if you draw a line for online use or aggregation, you have to be extremely narrow in scope, or you end up making people liable or even criminals for being out in public, taking a picture in a public space, and incidentally getting an image of some guy propositioning a police officer or something. Additionally, any further restriction on what public actions can be filmed by the public gives an officer or other government official even more reason or motivation to threaten, cajole, or even take action against a member of the public catching that someone in a bad moment in the background... or even purposefully recording them.

        It doesn't take an amoral, exceptional lawyer to find the small cracks in a broadly or ambiguously worded law or regulation and pry that sucker wide open to catch any number of people in a net supposedly crafted for a specific group of companies or behaviors. In such cases, I would prefer to work on finding better ways to obfuscate personal identify in the data rather than restrict or prevent its transmission. Doing anything more than that runs the risk of unintended consequences, especially given the lazy and unsophisticated nature of the folks tasked with modifying or adding to the law.

  12. vagabondo
    Flame

    "boffins" or PHBs?

    From the description given in this article, this does not seem to have much to do with boffinry and a lot to do with PHBs in sharkskin suts.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So now we know ..

    .. the Irish are seriously desperate to grab the Big Data business in Europe. That rather explains the mealy mouthed "enforcement" poor Facebook is subjected to. It's either that or their current regulator is as much angling for a big job as his predecessor was.

    The great EU privacy moat - breached in Ireland.

    1. Looper
      Devil

      Re: So now we know ..

      Yes, Now we know, that our "Data Protection Agency" are a bunch of lolly chasing sycophants to US corporations, NSA, GCHQ.

      We do not have an equivalent of GCHQ here, but we don't need it. Every fuckwit civil servant, every brown nosing local and national politician, every sycophantic quangoan routinely gathers your data and that of every other EU citizen they have access to, and passes it directly to the faucets of the great intelligence EU water reservoir.

      They would have you believe that this font printed on your screen is actually white, but that due to factors outside of their control it only appears to be black. Self-convinced lying weasels all. Not a single backbone among the lot of them.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Care.Data

    "My" data, captured by my GP, their appointments system and holds (subject to poor data) what medicines I take, what was wrong with me at various times of my life, what treatment I had etc.

    Has the potential to:

    - cut NHS costs through monitoring of treatments and costs/ outcomes.

    - provide better outcomes for patients in the future.

    - support drug companies and monitoring organisations in developing new drugs and monitoring long term outcomes and side effects.

    - provide statistics useful to the government in determining where money is spent and best spent in the future.

    - allows targeting of medical treatments to at-risk groups.

    - many more

    (Sarcasm) But no, they can't have my data because I am just concerned that a drug company might find out I had a gall stone removed in 1984 should they manage to get through the anonymisation that is applied.

    1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

      Tag in the wrong place

      Your (sarcasm) tag is in the wrong place - it should be at the beginning, before "My" and also put (/sarcasm) after "- many more".

      Otherwise, your post doesn't make any sense...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They will just use those data to cut expensive treatments and drugs if they target a small enough group of patients as long as the data tells their deaths don't raise too much public alarm. Governments will keep on wasting money because that's their way to 'help' friends and get consensus, they already have those data, but prefer not to use it.

      They will also use those data to ensure costlier drugs are used instead of cheaper ones. Also, it will be used to measure your risk so any insurance will ask you more even if your health is perfect now but data tells your risk will be higher in the future.

      You missed the whole point. Most of those wanting data are driven by money, not to improve mankind. And because those ready to pay for those data will want to see a return, they will act in their own interest, not yours. Sometimes they could be the same, but they could also diverge. And you have no way to ensure your data will always be used in your interest.

  15. Teiwaz
    Pint

    What happened to the Ireland I loved...

    Where most important decisions were made in the 'pub' after a few pints.

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: What happened to the Ireland I loved...

      Maybe if they'd had a few less pints before making big decisions, the ones they made wouldn't have led to this mess.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What happened to the Ireland I loved...

      They all left to become brickies in England leaving a vacuum to be filled by new media retards

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    A study in cross-purposes....

    “Regulation of Big Data analytics will necessarily require advances in areas such as anonymisation, encryption, and security"

    Except that politicians are trying to water down encryption and through that, security.

    And yes, a person should own anything they produce that is not paid for by an employer or customer, and that includes data.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look whose Pimping our Data now...

    ... The Rise of the Smartphone, Smart TV & IoT...

    The word is out on Facebook. Few people haven't heard of how Facebook 'wants to connect the world' (to advertisers & intelligence agencies).... But what I fear more is Smart TV, Smartphone and IoT spying, taking over from the traditional role of 'information rape' from the likes of Facebook etc..

    Look at the consumer spying ambitions of LG for example. They cynically test-drove USB spying knowing that it might backfire but having plausible deniability, just so they could explore the boundaries consumers will put up with.

    Now LG and Samsung want to build platforms that are direct conduits to advertisers. These systems use onboard gesture recognition, microphones and cameras, to spy on entire families, feeding data to advertisers in real-time, completely usurping Google and Facebook ...

    But I just a want a TV with a classy screen that doesn't spy on me! .. How hard is that? Well, Its getting harder to find basic models as everything is 'Smart'... And Smartphones, once you disable all the onboard spyware, often little else works...

    Next up we have IoT 'beds' with microphones... Wonderful! A GCHQ / NSA wet dream! What could possibly go wrong... Anyone else not entirely comfortable this type of 'progress' ...?

  18. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    The thing is...

    So, yeah, this data mining probably would allow ("enable" for the business types) all sorts of uses. Data analytics are a pretty powerful tool. But that's the thing, people know how powerful data analytics are and do not want companies to have access to all this information. Simple as that.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All of your base are belong to us.

    Children, repeat after me: " I am not a free man, I am a number."

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