General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFive things Obama's Big Data experts warned him about
A significant finding of this report is that big data analytics have the potential to eclipse longstanding civil rights protections in how personal information is used in housing, credit, employment, health, education, and the marketplace.
Here are five specific things the report warns the president of:
1. Data on all of us is piling up fast in the hands of public and private sector organizations and cant practically be clawed back.
Data, once created, is in many cases effectively permanent The technological trajectory, however, is clear: more and more data will be generated about individuals and will persist under the control of others. Ensuring that data is secure is a matter of the utmost importance.
2. Privacy laws are outdated. The primary legislation governing data privacy is the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. One problem the report raises is that these laws are hard to apply to data stored in the cloud.
We will continually need to examine our laws and policy to keep pace with technology, and should consider how the protection of content data stored remotely, for instance with a cloud provider, should relate to the protection of content data stored in a home office or on a hard drive. This is true of emails, text messages, and other communications platforms, which over the past 30 years have become an important means of private personal correspondence, and are most often stored remotely.
3. The way data is used to personalize prices, promotions, and access to financial services creates risks of discrimination against minority groups.
The ability to more precisely target advertisements is of enormous value to companies However, private-sector uses of big data must ensure vulnerable classes are not unfairly targeted. The increasing use of algorithms to make eligibility decisions must be carefully monitored for potential discriminatory outcomes for disadvantaged groups, even absent discriminatory intent.
4. Efforts to make online ad tracking more transparent are a mess.
Users, more often than not, do not understand the degree to which they are a commodity in each level of this marketplace technologies to improve transparency and privacy choices online have been slow to develop, and for many reasons have not been used widely by consumers.
5. Congress needs to enact new legislation. The report ends with six concrete policy proposals, two of which require action from Congress: updating the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act and passing a new law to set hard rules on how companies should respond to data breaches, such as that which saw details of 40 million credit and debit cards stolen.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/527071/five-things-obamas-big-data-experts-warned-him-about/
ProSense
(116,464 posts)WASHINGTON The White House today released its report on how the use of big data by the government and private companies can affect Americans lives. The report covers privacy rights and the potential for uses that could discriminate against groups like racial minorities.
Among its recommendations is that Congress should amend ECPA [the Electronic Communications Privacy Act] to ensure the standard of protection for online, digital content is consistent with that afforded in the physical world.
Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, had this reaction:
Everyone who cares about their privacy should be glad that the presidents review group recommends updating ECPA to protect Americans communications. By recognizing that online and offline communications should be treated the same, the report lays the groundwork for keeping everyones emails, texts, and photos private and secure. Now Congress and the administration need to make this vision a reality by enacting ECPA reform without any loopholes.
This report rightly recognizes that discrimination and inequality which already exist in society can be amplified by large-scale data analysis. We must remain vigilant to ensure that groups like racial minorities are helped by big data, not further marginalized by it.
https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/white-house-big-data-report-recommends-updating-email-privacy-law
Learn more about the big data review
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/technology/big-data-review
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)msongs
(67,405 posts)Cha
(297,196 posts)sheshe2
(83,754 posts)People at Democratic Underground support a Democratic President?
And the problem is???????????????????????????????????
pam4water
(2,916 posts)Democratic party. Supporting Obama the way Fox News Supported Bush does not one any good. Especially when Obama is doing the same thing as Bush. Being a good American is more than waving the flag or a big placard with an red white and blue 'O' on it.
Say Bush=Obama. Okay, I have no clue where you have been the past 5 plus years if that is what you believe. And trashing Obama the same way Faux Snews does, is not helping at all!
frylock
(34,825 posts)okaawhatever
(9,461 posts)show what a hot mess the privacy is. Congress should have passed protections long ago, the reason they didn't is because of lobbying from the likes of Facebook, Google and Yahoo.
pam4water
(2,916 posts)okaawhatever
(9,461 posts)Cha
(297,196 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,320 posts)joshcryer
(62,270 posts)The NSA does what private corporations do. We need privacy laws that stop the NSA as well as private corporations from doing this shit.
Cha
(297,196 posts)MineralMan
(146,288 posts)the private sector. That sector is the one that stands to benefit from having vast stores of data about us as individuals. They make money from it. The Government spends money to collect information and doesn't really benefit from it.
Cui Bono?
GeorgeGist
(25,320 posts)Romulox
(25,960 posts)genuinely confused...
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)I wince just about every day at all the personal clues I leave for them. Privacy laws are sorely in need of updating; I care far more about that than the gargantuan government's needle-in-a-haystack approach to ferreting out national security threats where I do not see myself implicated at all.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)Your priorities may or may not be different from mine, but you can see that the two topics are at least related, can't you? This initiative looks more like an attempt to re-direct our attention away from the NSA spying scandal than something genuine or new.
An odd choice, imo, in that it only reminds us of the fact that each of us is under constant, dragnet-style surveillance ordered by the very man speaking about our online privacy...
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)And yes, the topics are related (see point 1; its says, "public and private sector" , but my view is Americans will always care much, much more about money than power, so the potential for abuse in the service of profit is far greater. If this were Stalin's Russia, or even Putin's Russia, I would feel differently.
GeorgeGist
(25,320 posts)We're fucked in every way.