Data protection is very much part and parcel of
the human rights driven approach that the EU has taken for personal
data. Leaving aside the rather broad exceptions that are present for
the state when it comes to gathering information on people when it
comes to revenue and taxes (under section 8 of the Data Directive
1995) this is broadly a positive step. However as the saying goes,
too much of a good intention can lead inter alia to a poor
outcome. In this case, the use of data to better serve customer needs
being waylaid.
This has in part been prompted by the reading of
the book, What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data by
Adam Tanner. Here there are numerous negative examples of how Big
Data and how the prevalence of digitization has lead to personal data
being used for morally questionable outcomes. For instance the use of
criminal mugshots in websites for the titillation of the general
populace would likely give a typical Data Protection commissioner
fits. This is very much in keeping with the commercial driven agenda
where the worth of the data is key to understanding how the US crafts
their rather minimalist data protection laws.
On the other hand, where commercial interests are
present so too are the technological innovation that goes hand in
hand with such. Key to this was the paper, written in part by CEO of
a Vegas Corp. Gary Loveman, "Putting the Service-Profit Chain to
Work" which traces the importance of the regular customer.
Whilst he/she in an average transaction might not spend much, a
satisfied customer in their lifetime would be the sum total of their
entire spending and as such would be equivalent to the occasional
bigger spender. This insight lead to more emphasis on data gathering
on these heretofore unremarked segments of the market place and the
use of Big data to better craft personalised products to keep them as
regular spenders. As Tanner in his book mentions in the context of
gathering this data, there is a market imperative to keep much of
this open and voluntary as even the suggestion of "creepiness"
would lose the client and perhaps draw the ire of the legislators.
As well in parallel, this drives the technological innovation of Big
data.
Thus while not saying their should be a whole
scale rollback of the EU data protection, given that the current
directive is being overhauled to make it fit for the Cloud/Big Data
purpose, it would be relevant to note that the societal good can as
well be serviced by for-profit motivations.
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