Tag: privacy

Don Tapscott on Privacy

Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital and Wikinomics writes:

The tensions between information freedom and personal control are exploding today and not simply because of the benefits of sharing information using new media. Rather there are massive commercial, government interests along with malevolent individuals that have a lot to benefit from each of us revealing highly granular personal information, much of it in the public domain by default, real time as we travel through life. The clear and present danger is the irreversible erosion of that most enabling of liberties: anonymity.

This comes from the first in a seven part series on privacy (‘Living out loud’) in the Huffington Post. It makes a good start laying the foundations for the tensions and debates which have been raging for a few years. Are we really social animals and therefore share because of some genetic imprint? Or have we been slowly persuaded to exchange more of our privacy for the promise of some social nirvana? Is the ‘radical transparency’ argued for by people such as those working for Facebook, a way to happiness or to greater profits for Zuckerburg and his ilk? And then there’s the information that we share unknowingly – the data scraped from our lives on a day to day, week to week basis, which is then available to be collected, collated and mined by companies, governments and sometimes criminals. We might get better at managing the data that is available to opt in/out of sharing, but the data that is being scraped without our knowledge?

It’s interesting that Tapscott’s article is published on the same day that a new ten-year strategy for changing how the NHS manages information has been published. Part of that managment is consent to access to private, patient data. So, in Chapter 5:

5.41 The Government has also committed to consulting on an amendment to the NHS Constitution. Following on from the independent review of information governance, this will make more explicit proposals for the ‘consent deal’ – and will ensure that all interested parties have a chance to express their views on how they would like consent for the sharing of personal information to be sought and recorded.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in a world where we are less and less uncomfortable with default sharing in digital social networks. Will the argument be made that radical transparancy and the intrinsic good of sharing will lead to a better health service better health for all, or will there be a greater emphasis on privacy managment – that citizens are given the power and opportunity to say what information gets shared to whom and for how long. Such fine-grained data management is possible but is it expedient?

Privacy, learning and trust

I’ve never been that convinced that monitoring student engagement with ‘virtual learning platforms’ could have a significant impact on learning. The Big Brother effect can easily result in resentment, stimulate attempts to hack the system, and generally reinforce the notion that ‘control’ is central to the learning experience.

But I’ve re-thought the idea and decided to implement a feature in the courses that I teach with Moodle support that allows students to see a log of the ‘hits’ they record on the various pages I’ve created.

moodleClearly, I’ve always had access to this information. (And those who have access to the internet logs from the service provider I use will have access to more detailed logs of my use of this data … etc. etc.) But why share it? Why have I changed my mind about using this feature?

The basic idea has to do with privacy and trust. I think that sharing this information is actually a way of developing a relationship with those students who use the Moodle site I’ve created. I know that this information could be used to represent ‘student engagement’ with a particular course. Along with attendance at class sessions, such data might measure some things (virtual and physical ‘hits’) though they are not easily equated with (intellectual) engagement with the concepts, theories and arguments that emerge from the contents of the course. Instead, my choice of sharing this information is intended to create a kind of symmetry. I’m not seeing anything that students can’t see. That’s a principle of transparency that when dealing with ‘private’ information (and I know; what we click on, when and where we do so, is rarely private) has a more general application. It’s a symmetry which contributes to trust. If I can see what you can see then there’s more chance that I’ll trust you. That’s the way it works in small villages where everyone knows everyone else’s business and where everyone can be counted on to keep an eye out for everyone else. It’s the solidarity that is not based on ‘friendship’ but on a mutuality built out of symmetry.

Staff-student relationships are not symmetrical. Learner-teacher relationships can and should be – and will be if based on mutual trust.

BBC News – Today – Privacy in the ‘transition world’

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/10_17_10_17_301547/widgets/10shell.swf?revision=301547

via news.bbc.co.uk

Interesting snippet where Jeff Jarvis talks about the benefits of sharing the non-functioning of his penis publicly and Andre Keen looks to a future where technology catches up with our needs – where we become the masters of technology and not technology our masters.

On the question of sharing: Jarvis makes the point that 600,000 share aspects of their ideas and doings on Facebook because we are essentially social animals. Maybe (though I tend to agree with Keen that this socialness is way overplayed by the internet lovers), but Facebook doesn’t exist to satisfy this human imperative to socialise. Facebook exists as a commercial enterprise. It’s ‘commerce’ is our socialness and its power lies in the potential to exploit/monetise our social graphs in the same way that through the ‘loyality card’ the supermarket gets a load of data about our purchasing habits – data which it uses to increase its profits. For both Tesco and Facebook, the drive to collect data is a drive to increase dividends. Of course you don’t have to have a loyalty card in the same way that you don’t need to have a Facebook account – but for many that loyalty card or that Facebook profile is a cultural default. The exception is the opt-out. That’s why it’s an issue of privacy which needs to be debated.

Mind Your Tweets: The CIA Social Networking Surveillance System

That social networking sites and applications such as Facebook, Twitter and their competitors can facilitate communication and information sharing amongst diverse groups and individuals is by now a cliché.

It should come as no surprise then, that the secret state and the capitalist grifters whom they serve, have zeroed-in on the explosive growth of these technologies. One can be certain however, securocrats aren’t tweeting their restaurant preferences or finalizing plans for after work drinks.

No, researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are busy as proverbial bees building a “total information” surveillance system, one that will, so they hope, provide police and security agencies with what they euphemistically call “actionable intelligence.”

Build the Perfect Panopticon, Win Fabulous Prizes!

In this context, the whistleblowing web site Wikileaks published a remarkable document October 4 by the INDECT Consortium, the Intelligence Information System Supporting Observation, Searching and Detection for Security of Citizens in Urban Environment.

Hardly a catchy acronym, but simply put INDECT is working to put a human face on the billions of emails, text messages, tweets and blog posts that transit cyberspace every day; perhaps your face.

According to Wikileaks, INDECT’s “Work package 4″ is designed “to comb web blogs, chat sites, news reports, and social-networking sites in order to build up automatic dossiers on individuals, organizations and their relationships.” Ponder that phrase again: “automatic dossiers.”

via globalresearch.ca