Media and the Digital Age
Paper/Proposal Title
Privacy and Freedom of Information in Organizational Contexts: Human Rights Issues in an Era of Big Data (abstract)
Location
University of Dayton
Start Date
10-2-2015 4:00 PM
End Date
10-2-2015 5:30 PM
Abstract
Large-scale information collection and dissemination practices are acquiring greater economic and political significance in the everyday lives of citizens. Privacy and freedom of information issues are becoming more complex as “big data” and machine learning replace traditional forms of dossier collection, statistical analysis, and archiving. This paper explores the varieties of human rights issues that are emerging. The enormous amounts of data associated with social media systems and mobile applications have increased the number of facial recognition, locational tracking, socioeconomic analysis, and related practices being conducted by corporations as well as governmental agencies.
Often corporations and governmental agencies couple their efforts, which can magnify the difficulty of discerning legitimate and actionable citizen concerns and mapping practical modes for addressing them. Citizens who pose requests as to what kinds of information is being held about them by organizations and as to how it is being used can be frustrated by the lack of specificity in the responses they receive (if any). Privacy structures can often hurt individuals’ chances of obtaining information rather than assist them, providing barriers that are largely designed to protect organizations rather than increase organizational transparency.
This presentation outlines a set of recent cases that relate human rights involving free movement and access to needed resources to concerns dealing with privacy and freedom of information. It emphases facial recognition and socioeconomic analysis initiatives along with geographic information system (GIS) and related locational applications. It projects some of the consequences for human rights that technological developments toward a cashless society (with applications such as Apple Pay) may engender. The presentation also relates the technological initiatives described in this paragraph to various rhetorics about terrorism and national security.
Included in
Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons, Policy History, Theory, and Methods Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Work, Economy and Organizations Commons
Privacy and Freedom of Information in Organizational Contexts: Human Rights Issues in an Era of Big Data (abstract)
University of Dayton
Large-scale information collection and dissemination practices are acquiring greater economic and political significance in the everyday lives of citizens. Privacy and freedom of information issues are becoming more complex as “big data” and machine learning replace traditional forms of dossier collection, statistical analysis, and archiving. This paper explores the varieties of human rights issues that are emerging. The enormous amounts of data associated with social media systems and mobile applications have increased the number of facial recognition, locational tracking, socioeconomic analysis, and related practices being conducted by corporations as well as governmental agencies.
Often corporations and governmental agencies couple their efforts, which can magnify the difficulty of discerning legitimate and actionable citizen concerns and mapping practical modes for addressing them. Citizens who pose requests as to what kinds of information is being held about them by organizations and as to how it is being used can be frustrated by the lack of specificity in the responses they receive (if any). Privacy structures can often hurt individuals’ chances of obtaining information rather than assist them, providing barriers that are largely designed to protect organizations rather than increase organizational transparency.
This presentation outlines a set of recent cases that relate human rights involving free movement and access to needed resources to concerns dealing with privacy and freedom of information. It emphases facial recognition and socioeconomic analysis initiatives along with geographic information system (GIS) and related locational applications. It projects some of the consequences for human rights that technological developments toward a cashless society (with applications such as Apple Pay) may engender. The presentation also relates the technological initiatives described in this paragraph to various rhetorics about terrorism and national security.
Comments
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