PROPOSITION: Corporate Data Collection Poses a Threat to Personal Freedom.

AuthorTuccille, J.D.
PositionThe Debate Issue

AFFIRMATIVE: Big Corporations Want Your Data. Don't Give It to Them.

IF I FORGET where I've been shopping online, I can just head over to Facebook. Ads on the social networking site will quickly remind me what I've been browsing, and perhaps even offer a coupon code to help close the deal. I appreciate the discounts, but I'm creeped out by the thought of the profile that can be stitched together from the sites that I visit.

Libertarians rightly fret about government databases that assemble sensitive information about finances, movements, and beliefs. That information can be weaponized against individuals for official purposes (hello, J. Edgar Hoover!) or for personal gain and amusement. It's also a treasure trove for hackers, as we've seen with breaches to the IRS and the federal Office of Personnel Management. We have no choice but to supply the state with the data it demands and hope for the best.

If you're concerned about privacy, however, it's apparent that we don't have a lot more choice when it comes to private sector data collection. And while the threat there is different than the one posed by intrusive government programs, it's still worth worrying about--and taking steps to protect yourself.

Loan applications, credit card transactions, and surfed websites contribute pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of our lives. The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica hookup illustrated how sought-after those puzzle pieces are for the targeted marketing of products--and politicians. The 2017 hack of credit monitoring company Equifax compromised the personal data, including tax identification and Social Security numbers, of nearly 150 million people. Criminal pilfering of credit agency databases demonstrates that data collection doesn't have to be mandated by law to be perilous.

Credit agencies, banks, social media companies, marketers--there's a long list of independent agencies who don't need legal bludgeons to extract our data from us. Keeping our private information out of their hands might be possible, but only by living a cash-only, near-Luddite existence.

Some digital privacy hawks have argued that personal data should be treated like property. There's something appealing about the idea that we should have control over the use of information that might be sensitive, or dangerous, or just embarrassing. But data doesn't exist in a discrete, physical form. It's knowledge, and knowledge can be effortlessly replicated and distributed--including in people's minds. How would we control that?

One possibility, suggested by Mark Skilton, an information systems professor at Warwick Business School in the U.K., is to separate the right to possess your personal information from the right to grant permission to others for its use. "New personal data services will evolve to track and better enable people to manage their data while maintaining security and privacy," he predicts.

That could work for...

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