Responsible Big Data: Use It To Your Own Advantage
Although the majority of organisations have already discovered the value of Big Data for their personal interests and society as a whole, many still consider it to be only an over-promoted buzzword. Despite these shy claims, it is undisputed that Big Data is one of the most discussed topics of the digital world.
However, it is challenging to comprehend its real size and scalability. Even for tech superstars it is sometimes difficult to have a clear vision of the future of a technology. Bill Gates once famously said that ‘640 Kilobytes is all the memory anybody would ever need on a computer’. Today we all know the evolution that happened since that declaration.
Outside of the data science field, it is very hard to picture how much data it is available today. Just a few years ago, the common currency in discussions about data were Gigabytes. Today, data is ordinarily quantified in Petabytes. Just to put it in perspective and have an idea of the magnitude, one Petabyte represents one quadrillion bytes. The outstanding property of data is that it can only grow in size over time. Assuming that tomorrow we will continue with our usual routine, new data will be generated.
According to Gartner, the total volume of data is projected to grow by 800% in the next five years, with 80% of it being unstructured data;
while IDC estimated that global Data will grow to 163 Zettabytes (millions of Petabytes) by 2025.
Big Data did not get this large because of its importance to the community. Organisations of any kind thrive on consumer data. Indeed, this huge demand is expected to drive the value of the industry to more than $200 billion by the end of next year.
Moreover, companies are getting better at analysing unstructured data, which represents up to 90% of total useful business information.
How do big corporations get our consent?
The rapid technological advancements are significantly decreasing the price of devices as well as data storage. The effect is an exponential growth in the size of datasets, the majority of which are controlled by a small circle of large corporations. As we are entering the Internet of Things era, where our phones, cars, smart homes and wearables produce more and more data, these datasets are expected to become one of the most important assets for organisations in any industry.
But how do they get our consent to collect and treat our personal data?
Nowadays, every software-based product and service come with terms and conditions. In an ideal world, users should always read them through before deciding whether accepting them or not.
But are we actually given a choice?
On average, a person would have to spend 76 days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year.
Moreover, the customer does not have any negotiating power with ‘the giants’. The lengthy terms are the same for each user — if you want to use the service, there is no alternative but accepting them.
Reading Amazon’s terms and conditions takes approximately nine hours to read. How many people are ready to go through that before deciding that it is not sensible to use the service?
The ugly truth is that despite new regulations like GDPR are coming into place, big corporations keep thriving on this mechanism.
However, a natural question arises: how long is this going to last?
Privacy as competitive advantage
Many sustain that this disregard for personal privacy is not sustainable in the long run.
The reason for it is not even connected to increasing attention from the governments to safeguard users. Some companies are slowly realising that effective data governance, as well as preservation of customers privacy is becoming source of competitive advantage.
A very good example is the messaging app Telegram. Why would someone switch from mainstream platforms like WhatsApp and Messenger to populate a far less established service? The answer is pretty simple: privacy. Telegram is the first messaging service that offers full encryption of every single message or call made through the application, thanks to their advanced MTProto End-to-End encryption. This does not mean that other messaging services are not secure; most of them offer encryption features as well. However, Telegram’s success is an evident sign that users are becoming increasingly sensitive about how companies collect and handle their data.
Another example is Apple. The company is well known for stressing their hardware business nature and for offering more restrictive and more secure products compared to competitors. Recently, Apple decided to battle intrusiveness by adding a new tool to their new versions of Safari to block cross-site ad trackers and cookies that follow users across the web. The company is continuously busy fighting Google and Facebook as well. It happened multiple times throughout the years that Apple blocked the two companies from its Developer Enterprise Program, as the two tech giants were improperly using it to collect customer data.
The number of organisations that try to be mindful of customers data and their privacy is on the rise. Many of them realise that this decision might put them in a position of disadvantage in the short run, but they are also confident that it is the only way to reach long-term success. As users become progressively conscious of their online privacy and are willing to switch to services that offer them peace of mind, we should expect to see more companies changing their data governance strategies in the upcoming years.
It is still not clear whether responsible data governance can be a viable source of competitive advantage, but the increasing attention to consumer privacy is definitely a good step towards a more ethical use of technology.
Follow Gyana to know more about Responsible Big Data and why it is something worth pursuing.
