New information technologies are driving change in how we view personal data. Even before the millenium, personal data were being viewed as “global commodities” (Parry and Mauthner, 2004:140). With the spread of the Web and Web technologies, personal data have been progressively easier to scrape and store. After 2000 when smartphones become commonplace, personal data has never been easier to get and store as apps just ask for it, and consumers consider this normal behaviour. Websites like this one even list the top 9 personal data apps, without any consideration to what the apps do with the data.

Archiving data has been a priority for many bodies for centuries. The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) has been collecting, archiving and maintaining data since 1996. This method is both beneficial to the archaeology and history communities by creating a centralised database of millions of artefacts, but also is an altruistic endeavor that will preserve this data for the future generations. However, other services have taken a much more invasive approach, even trusted ones. Yahoo had a famous case of stealing and logging personal webcam data, a lot of which was highly personal indeed. GCHQ, the government’s communication monitoring facility, exacerbated the situation by archiving this data.

There are many different approaches to archiving data, but when intimate data such as that stored by GCHQ it raises important questions about how we view personal data. Recently, Apple’s iCloud software was compromised when hackers obtained hundreds of personal images stored by celebrities and probably non-celebrities too. This case, though slightly trivial in subject, highlights the need to re-evaluate our approaches to personal data, especially when Web technologies are involved.

Therefore, personal data management strategies need to be regarded with the utmost scrutiny. Even totally innocent apps that merely store bits and pieces of data can be collated to form an impression of users of the app, or of the local area of the app user, as seen by Riot software. However, data ownership needs to be considered before condemning these applications and websites. For instance, Google Drive’s terms and conditions states that it has “a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works” (Smith, 2014). This, therefore, allows Google to store and make use of any data uploaded by its users as the latter have forfeited any sense of ownership of the data. Furthermore, Chen and Zhao (2012) highlight some “accidents” that Amazon’s cloud computing services had in 2009, where most of their network went down resulting in several services being cut off. Also in 2009, information stored in Google Docs was leaked after a vulnerability was exploited. As already mentioned, in 2014 “the fappening” was a result of the iCloud network being compromised. Even with the ever increasingly complex network and security structures, cloud software is still vulnerable.

Despite all this, the advantages to cloud computing outweigh the few cases of security breaches. Also, as seen in this previous blog, trust plays a powerful role in data storage. Largely, active Web users trust Google and iCloud to store and safeguard their data, so when a data breach as large as “the fappening” occurs, it’s more about the breach of trust than the data leaked.

The University of Southampton’s Data Privacy Policy

The document clearly states that “data should not be held for longer than is necessary” (p2). This can be misleading, as companies/apps may consider data collected on day 1 just as useful as on day 1000. Perhaps they continuously update their app based on overall trends in user statistics, if so then the data will always be useful.

Application to Scene

We will be using GPS and some personal data in our app. Users will provide us with their age, gender and perhaps ethnicity as well as their interests in order for us to make recommendations and tie them in with others who share their interests. This data, whilst useful for us in terms of our modus operandi, is still their personal data. However, they are submitting it willingly and in full knowledge of how we are going to use it, therefore does this mean we obtain ownership of it? It is a tough moral decision. We are using the data to improve our service and help them create events and organise their social lives, therefore we hope our use of the data is justified. Storing data from minors is a touchy subject and one that we should not embark on straight away. As the app develops, opening it up to minors is a definite goal.

References

Chen, D. and Zhao, H., 2012. Data Security and Privacy Protection Issues in Cloud Computing [PDF] Available at: <http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/2584474/417972861/name/NDU-1.pdf> [Accessed 25/04/2015].

Parry, O. and Mauthner, N.S., 2004. Whose Data are they Anyway? Sociology, 38(1), pp.139-152.

Smith, M., 2014. How Secure are your Documents in Google Drive? [online] Available at: <http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-secure-are-your-documents-in-google-drive/> [Accessed 25/04/2015].