Facebook is confronting another privacy scandal after it was reported that the company has formal agreements to share user data with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including one flagged as a national security threat to the United States. The latest revelation contributes to a growing unease about how Facebook and other tech companies protect user privacy.
From undisclosed data sharing that puts health and financial information at risk to political ads targeted using unauthorized data, the consequences of big data have become vaster and more threatening than anyone could have imagined. Our research finds traditional approaches to safeguarding privacy stretched to the limit as thousands of data points are collected about each of us every day and maintained indefinitely by a host of technology platforms.
For all our fears, many people have a sense that the erosion of privacy is simply the price we must pay for the benefits of technology. However, the death of privacy is not inevitable, and the proof comes from another field that collects and protects large amounts of sensitive personal information: scientific research.
After facing its own series of ethical crises nearly 50 years ago, particularly the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, the scientific community developed a rigorous system for collecting and using research data while protecting the people behind the data. This system of research ethics is a fundamental foundation of modern science, helping academics maintain the trust of the people who participate in their research…
Read the full article online at The Boston Globe…
This article was produced by Footnote in partnership with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. It highlights research from their Privacy Tools Project and was published in The Boston Globe.
