Data collection is big business in the US, but a bipartisan data privacy bill rapidly moving through Congress promises to affect the information websites, social media platforms and all other businesses collect.
Cyberattacks demanding ransoms for the release of information are on the rise. To determine if they should pay, businesses need to think about how they would react in such a scenario.
As material objects, diaries give scholars an intimate look into their subjects’ lives, including handwriting and mementos. What if diaries in the future are nothing but insubstantial digital ghosts?
Strip-searches are rarely a matter of public debate in the UK. Raw data – and the impact known from research in other jurisdictions – suggests though that they should be.
Digital twins could be used in the future to predict and influence our behaviour, but this raises concerns about who owns our data and how we can access and control it.
“Hackathons” can imply breaching security and privacy. To more accurately reflect their creative and constructive intent, they can be referred to instead as “datathons” or “code fests.”
It would take huge numbers of people submitting bad data to affect the algorithms behind period tracking apps, but even then it would be more harmful than helpful.
How we get the balance right between using social media to hold people to account versus the risk of invading people’s privacy depends on the context, of course, and is ultimately about power.
The Tim Hortons consumer app was found to have collected detailed user information, including location data. As a privacy violation, this challenges perception of Tim Hortons as a trusted brand.