While you move your mouse or click a button there are millions of data getting stored, we simply call it user data. But for what it uses really matters.
Most of us are aware of what is user data if not we can simply say “all the actions taken place by a person while he/she use any computer/electronic/application/device. It ranges from spending time, visiting websites, interesting subjects, communication with people and even clicks and mouse movements are part of this data. Its been used for a while for understanding human behavior and response to the particular subject and it helps developers to improve their service. There are different methods of this data collection and they are known for their way of collection.
- Direct Method: This is a very common way of data collection using some kind of form or communication, for example filling name and details for sign up of an email account or purchasing an item from e-commerce platform or even filling some kind survey, here user have clear idea about what they are providing. That’s why they can say a clear “No” for an inappropriate question. This type of data called Explicit data.
- Indirect method: This way of data collection it’s not just one method but all those tons of methods have one thing in common, This piece of information is not given by the user with their direct input. this type of data called Implicit data for example website cookie, almost 99% of websites installs cookies in user side to store user preferences and login. but sometimes it also helps to target advertisements. it’s just one of them there are millions of methods using for understanding user behavior like heat mapping for the area of focus, click and time spending etc.
- Data buying: This data is what we have to discuss here. this kind of data is not collected directly from any user of analyzing their activity in their platform but this data is purchased from a third party data seller and who collected this data from above-mentioned methods. this data is also known as Acquired data. While most of the data sellers are not informing their users/owners of this data about this sale this corporates simply make money from it. and the user gets no benefits but there is a serious chance for trouble also.
We are living in a World containing more machines than human, technology serves a bigger role in life. As we know data collection from user side play a crucial role in building architecture and interactivity between these smart devices and human. While more smart devices came into wearable form and interaction needs more optimization from time to time. Technology companies are now syncing their data within their products to create better experience development, like Google, Apple, Samsung etc.. using their huge database within their products to provide a better machine learning and better result. But these giants are collecting a big amount of data from every user including personal and private details called user data and selling this to high price bidding advertisers. 90% revenue of Google and Facebook is from their advertisements and that is billions of dollars, it shows how valuable user data. And how secure our information with this tech giants? We cannot say an “Absolute No” to the collected data because it’s very important to the upcoming development of smart devices while collecting user’s personal data will be extremely harmful. To overcome this problem we need transparency in user data collection. I think an Open Source platform to collect processed user data and share with companies where they need this data for research, perform and to collect and share machine learning without individually collecting/user’s personal details.
We know how to secure our user data in this corrupted world, even with our governments. World’s biggest democratic country India implemented Unique Identity Number called “AADHAAR” and they collected every citizen’s information including their financial, medical information and secured under national data center under the government of India and government promised its safety and security of the citizen. After few months corporate giant reliance announced a cellular network “Jio” collected that information from government through “AADHAAR” number and now its been hacked by unknown. While there is no information about what information is been hacked or how deep their hacking went to collect information and where the security compromised not just citizen of India all social media users and smartphone users (about 70% of mankind living in 2017) is under threat. It’s not just about dirty human hands, also about future unrevealed threats. It’s still in our hands, we have to say BIG NO to User Details Collection and only on Open Source and Public Machine Learning for the safety of mankind, for privacy for our own life.
The solution is not simple as we write in a piece of paper or in a single talk. luckily I’ve hoped in Blockchain technology to solve this issue, there is a number of projects announced like MedicalChain, Proof.work, to securely store health records and share with doctors & institutes by granting permission from the patient. Project Wibson is addressing user data monetizing with use of blockchain another blockchain initiative Enigma Protocol is very interesting because of their promise of keeping anonymity of data and processing codes instead of the whole block. meanwhile, we need another one massive opensource project to collect primary data and send to applications without sharing private data, like a security layer.