by Angela Guess
Sean Young recently wrote for Time.com, “Does the rise of big data mean the downfall of privacy? Mobile technologies now allow companies to map our every physical move, while our online activity is tracked click by click. Throughout 2014, BuzzFeed’s quizzes convinced millions of users to divulge seemingly private responses to a host of deeply personal questions. Although BuzzFeed claimed to mine only the larger trends of aggregate data, identifiable, personalized information could still be passed on to data brokers for a profit.”
Young continues, “But the big data revolution also benefits individuals who give up some of their privacy. In January of this year, President Obama formed a Big Data and Privacy Working Group that decided big data was saving lives and saving taxpayer dollars, while also recommending new policies to govern big data practices. How much privacy do we really need? In advance of the Zócalo event Does Corporate America Know Too Much About You?, we asked experts the following question: How can we best balance the corporate desire for big data and the need for individual privacy?”
