Data privacy concerns for nearly 2bn Internet users…
Amongst the headline stories to break over the last 12 months the accelerated growth of Internet users around the globe is certainly one of the most significant. Last year alone, more than 360 million people came online for the first time, at an average of almost 1 million new users each day. This spike now means that 57% of the world’s population (some 4.388bn individuals), is connected to the World Wide Web.
It not just the number of users that is on the increase though. According to the Hootsuite Digital Report 2019, we’re spending significant amounts of time online, too, with the average Internet user now spending more than six and a half hours online each day.
With fixed & mobile Internet speeds increasing over the last year by 18% & 33% to 25.08 MBPS & 54.33MBPS respectively, it is no surprise that streaming giant, YouTube is the second most visited website in the world, with the average visitor spending a whopping 21 minutes per visit.
All this adds up to the world’s digital population spending a giant, combined total of more than 1.2 billion years online by the end of 2019, 48% of which will be done via mobile connections on devices such as tablets, smartphones & wearables.
If the Internet is the enabler of Industry 4.0, then data is certainly the fuel that is powering it. While the exponential growth of data is undisputed, the numbers behind this explosion (fuelled by cloud, the IoT and a host of other developing tech), are still hard to articulate, so let’s take a look at this data boom in the context of ‘a day in the life of data’.
According to a recent special report by Raconteur Media, drawing on data from PWC, Twitter, Facebook Research, Intel, PwC & Smart Insights, 294bn emails are sent; 500 million tweets are posted; 4PBs of Facebook data is created and 65bn WhatsApp messages are sent each day. Looking ahead to next year, the amount of data in the digital universe is predicted to grow ten-fold to 44ZB.
So what’s the big deal? After all, with increased Internet proliferation & data generation comes economic benefit; with economic development comes more stable government, & stable government ultimately results in greater social mobility & inclusion for all citizens.
All correct, yes, but, a significant & increasingly relevant by-product of the free service that is the Internet, isn’t just the data — increasingly it is the consumer awareness of how that very same data (especially data that’s relevant to individuals), is being collected, mined and used by third-parties & brands — a concept that Shoshana Zuboff refers to as surveillance capitalism.
According to the same Hootsuite report, some 42% of Internet users (or nearly 2bn people globally) are concerned about data privacy issues, so that isn’t a number that can simply be dismissed or ignored, & it’s no coincidence that the last 12 months have witnessed a raft of international data protection regulations, from GDPR in Europe & CCPA in California, to updates to PDPA in Singapore. All of which target exactly this point.
Trying to roll back Internet penetration or data creation is akin to trying to hold back the tide — it’s going to prove pretty much impossible unless you happen to own a trident. The value of the Hootsuite & Raconteur research is not to scare marketing departments, IT departments or legal teams into knee-jerk, short-term action: rather, its true value is to highlight the clear & present need for companies of all sizes & sectors to address the data privacy concerns a significant & growing percentage of global citizens.
We still have a long way to go when it comes to privacy in our digital age. However, the last twelve months have certainly shown that there is not only an appetite to deliver this from populist citizen groundswell, but also at a regulatory & law-making level too & this surely is a positive thing. 12 months is a long time in both the political & technology spheres, so it’ll be interesting to see where we’re ‘at’ in 2020, so watch this space…
