Rules for Healthy Relations in the World of Data, by Andreas Weigend.
03 de December de 2021
03 de December de 2021
Big data and the post-privacy economy have quickly pushed their way into our lives. The great majority of people have accepted data collection, whether consciously or in order to benefit from the different apps. During his talk at the 2021 EAE Business School Annual Alumni Reunion,Andreas Weigend asked: “Do clients understand the value of what they get when asked to share data?”.
Weigend is a Professor at Stanford University and author of ‘Data for the People’ and, as a physicist, to end up leading the scientific team at Amazon never crossed his mind. From his position, he thought about the fundamental questions behind the numbers. For him, data are living things.
The ABC(DE) of Amazon
During his time at Amazon, he was able to acquire first hand knowledge on the culture in which we move today. He sums it up in 5 words:
Attention: The world fights for your attention”. In an ultra-competitive environment, companies need to get your interest and be interesting. The need to be the centre of attention.
Belonging: We all need to identify ourselves with a certain group, a need to belong to something greater than ourselves.
Curiosity: It’s related to the questions; the good questions. Curiosity is forged from the questions we ask ourselves.
Data:Data, says Weigend, helps us make better questions. It’s not relevant itself and it shouldn’t be a starting point.
Experimentation:It’s closely related to curiosity. It’s the necessary path towards shedding light on data and the questions we make./p>
Rules for Users and Companies
When Weigend was living in China, he was impressed by the level of surveillance that exists in the world of data. “Anyone who believes in privacy is not aware of the amount of data collected from everyone of us”, he points out. And not just in China, but everywhere in the world. In fact, Google knows more about ourselves than we do. “There are lots of people who wouldn’t show their couples their Google searches —Weigend points out—, but they have no problem with Google knowing it”.The issue of privacy has taken a 180 degrees turn with technology and it’s necessary to find a perfect balance between the exploration and exploitation of what we share. For this, Weigend offers 10 points —divided between users and companies— that will foster healthy relations in the world of data.
Rules for Healthy Relations in the World of Data
Users’ Rights
1.Accessibility: The client must have access, at all times, to the data and be able to inspect the data refinery.
2. Amendments: El contrato no debe ser de por vida. Tiene que existir la opción de revocarlo en cualquier momento..
3. Difuminación: Data precision is huge and this is dangerous for security reasons. The right to blur entails that, for example, instead of knowing our exact location, they get a range of meters.
4. Experimentation:For the users, not just the companies, to be able to experiment with their own data.
5. Portability:The right to take your data wherever you want.
Rules for Companies:
6. Goals: Understanding that collecting data is not a goal in itself, rather a tool that’s needed to address the needs of the users.
7. Impact:: Centre the use of the data around actions and decisions that will have an impact on the client.
8. Clarity: Make the implicit explicit through data transfer agreements.
9. Transparency: Embracing it for the benefit of the client and showing what’s at stake.
10. Respect: Following the previous point, it supposes the empowerment of users while, in the process, treating them with respect.
Trust — The Magic Word
Data ownership is clear and it belongs to the people transferring it. Weigend, who was an advisor for Chancellor Angela Merkel, defends imposing fines greater than the benefit that the company has received for companies that make wrong use of data. Without justice, also in this often blurred post-privacy world, users cannot trust in companies.
Nowadays, everything can be measured and predicted. Our own voice on the phone can be used to determine our health and, based on that, we can choose to get health insurance or not. Who or what can we trust on the internet? Not even others can trust us. Showing the consequences that data can bring is a step towards making society understand the importance of the use of data. ‘Data literacy’, that’s what Weigend gave Angela Merkel so that she could, little by little, make client/companies relations healthier, more conscious, and transparent in the Big Data economy.