CONSENT IS CRUCIAL
Why has this issued cropped up ?
Data and data science have suddenly emerged into the spotlight.
- First, there was a data breach at Facebook, which saw allegations of the U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica (CA) illegally accessing over 87 million users’ information for personalisation of digital campaigns.
- Then there were allegations that the official mobile apps of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress party had sent user data without consent to foreign companies for analytical purposes.
Reasons for rise of data science
IBM says that 90% of the world’s data has been generated just in the last two years. The rapid rise of data science can be attributed to the voluminous amount of information that is being generated with every activity of ours in this digital age and the strides concurrently made in the world of mathematical modelling, computation, and Artificial Intelligence-powered algorithms.
Use of data
- These trends are creating unprecedented, far-reaching possibilities built on our growing capability to analyse vast quantities of the most complex of data in real time, and helping us get insights that can assist us in taking best-informed decisions across sectors.
- Data science generally tends to produce win-win scenarios for the practising organisations and their end users. For example, its application in election processes can make it possible for various political parties to understand their voters better, and to reach out to them more effectively.
- The insights derived after analysing feedback from the electorate can be used while creating manifestos, formulating policies, and selecting candidates — steps that can essentially usher in a more transparent and participatory democracy.
The concern
- There are growing fears that applications of data science, along with large social media platforms with hundreds of millions of active users, could unduly subvert our democratic processes, and turn our elections into mere marketing campaigns.
- However, it should not be forgotten that similar fears in lesser degrees existed across time, while our mass communication technologies evolved from the print, to the radio, and then the television medium. Data-driven social media and digital platforms should be seen as yet another stage in this evolution.
- Facebook and CA find themselves in the dock, not for putting in action any of the applications of data science, but for illegally doing so.
Conclusion
These events call for the expedited creation of strong data privacy and protection laws, without which our newest fundamental right will remain easily exploitable words on paper.
Relevance : GS 2, 3
