Data Practices in the Digital Era

The Cambridge Analytica scandal highlighted the gaps in the general population's understanding of data practices and the risk of our privacy. The incident revealed that businesses "take more data from people than they need, and give away more than they should, often only asking permission in fine print—if they even ask at all" (Lapowski, 2019, para 8).

Thus we have all become more acutely aware of our privacy and the need to monitor businesses' data practices. However, this has created a dichotomy for marketing data practices: "The balance between personalization and privacy is a critical issue facing marketers. On the one hand, consumers want personalized communication, but on the other hand, they are concerned with the implications it has on their privacy. Privacy as a concept is also closely related to ethics, especially data ethics. The amount of personal data gathered in the modern digitalized world is massive, and therefore the threat to personal privacy is more apparent than before" (Shamsuzzoha & Raappana, 2021, para 2).

Data ethics sit at the intersection of innovation and trust. In our increased reliance on digital transformation, we now recognize that data-driven businesses now hold more power over us, "The digital world can impact our lives and influence our social behavior, economic situation, political stance, security and government actions in ways that go beyond our expectations. However, no entity, individual or community will be able to survive without existing on the internet or social networks" (Wehbe, 2020, para 36). At the 2019 TEDSummit, investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr explained that power now lies in who has your data and information, "these companies that now have that information, they are now the most powerful companies on earth and there's all sorts of signs to suggest that they are more powerful than any nation state" (4:35 - 4:49). 

However, Cambridge Analytica represents a wake-up call and we have seen a shift in consumer knowledge and autonomy. We are now calling on more transparency and morality in data practices and privacy. By recognizing the power that data and the Internet have over us, we have begun to understand where the ethical dilemmas exist: 

“Increasingly, digital data infrastructures, like the Internet, are part of what makes our societies prosper. And as this network-of-networks become more important—from managing our critical infrastructures like the electricity grid to managing our private lives—so does the ethics of its technical governance. The management of the infrastructure of the Internet depends on choice and control. It is about how one decides to build the infrastructure through which data travels, and how it does so. The Internet influences who can connect to whom, and how. In turn, these choices can have a fundamental impact on the Internet’s ability to foster the public interest, especially in terms of social justice, civil liberties, and human rights. Control matters too. Internet infrastructure is increasingly becoming ‘politics by other means’. Understanding the ethics of the practices embedded in the technology underlying the Internet’s digital information flows is vital in order to understand and ultimately improve societal and political developments” (Floridi, Cath, & Taddeo, 2019, pp. 13 – 14).

So while we cannot change the trajectory of our digital reliance, we must continue to scrutinize data practices and demand for a strong focus on data ethics.  

References

Cadwalladr, C. (2019, July). It's not about privacy—it's about power [video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_it_s_not_about_privacy_it_s_about_power

Floridi, L., Cath, C., & Taddeo, M. (2019). Digital ethics: Its nature and scope. In C. Öhman & D. Watson (Eds.), The 2018 yearbook of the digital ethics lab (pp 9 – 17). Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17152-0_2

Hearst Newspapers. (2015, July 18). Cambridge Analytica one of the businesses in attendance uses behavioral and personality traits in their micro targeting, which they see as the future of data-driven audience engagement, during a conference called Reboot [Image]. GettyImages. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cambridge-analytica-one-of-the-businesses-in-attendance-news-photo/1268515748?adppopup=true

Lapowski, I. (2019, March 17). How Cambridge Analytica sparked the great privacy awakening. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-facebook-privacy-awakening/

Shamsuzzoha, A. & Raappana, H. (2021). Perspectives of business process ethics in data-driven marketing management. Security and Privacy, 4(6). https://doi.org/10.1002/spy2.177

Wehbe, S. (2020, May 10). The impact of the digital age on society today: A global perspective. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-digital-age-society-today-global-perspective-shada-wehbe