Who's got my data?

Who's got my data?

The latest hobby is Collecting Data. Collecting data on people is big business. Psychologists measure people all over the world. Facebook,besides collecting demographic  information was in business to collect much harder psychographic  data on individuals  worldwide.

Everyday billions, some say 2.13 billion of Facebook members give it huge amounts of information,about their lives and their dreams. With every swipe we leave a footprint on Facebook. Data is so light we don't notice it until it's gone. When it's gone, we find it difficult to erase it, delete it or sometimes even impossible to retrieve it. 

The Wi-fi in Starbucks, the Amazon Echo by your bed and the Sainsbury Nectar Card you use for your daily shopping all quietly squirrel away data, quite legally under the guise of the terms and conditions you sign to use their services. 

According to researchers,the average person generates 600MB of data every day,about the equivalent of streaming a one hour You Tube video,in high definition.

In the case of Facebook it targeted people with personalised political messages to influence their voting behaviour. Facebook harvested, in fact minted data. It built models to "target their hopes and fears." 

Analysts predict your personality and ideologies, your fears and fancies by asking simple questions. They go shopping for impressionable users, what kind of political messaging users were susceptible to, how to frame their messages, the tone and content that would motivate their users. The way was to easily get their users to part with their innermost personality secrets with others. The basis was it was being shared among friends and family. But instead, it was shared with political parties, with business advertisers and perhaps, with Big Brother. In this way, they were able to compile a shopping list of traits that could be predicted about the actions of voters, of shoppers, of neighbours,of people with religious, social and cultural persuasions. There was a eager market for such information which could not be gathered or found elsewhere. 

Facebook and similar social media like Twitter, used the relationship with family and friends,as well as with others who were self monitoring,by changing disclosure depending with whom they communicate, to ascertain behaviour patterns, for monetary profit, for political gain, and sometimes for blackmail. This was done covertly knowingly putting users at risk.

Social adjustment and responsibility 

Politics flows from culture and traditions. You had to change people to change culture. Psychograpic and psychotropic  profiling of individuals was necessary to change societal behaviour. A clear case is the offer of new guidance to dispel myths around fostering and adopting which was launched in Yorkshire in a bid to boost the number of Muslims helping children in care. 

The problem of Pakistani third generation young migrants in Yorkshire  grooming, cavorting and raping white local girls has been an eyesore on society which needed correction. Every way of sending a message to these hot blooded youth through the local community    organisations,"madrasses" and mosques, proved inadequate. A new and innovative way of communicating a thorny issue had to be found. The social media was used for this social adjustment mechanism. We now await its outcome.

The first Islamic "Guidance Document on Adoption and Fostering" was aimed at a resolution of this problem. It aimed at getting these unscrupulous, uncaring and irresponsible young migrant youth to take responsibility for their action by making girls pregnant and producing unwanted children, who had to be cared for in Child Care Centres,a drain on society. 

The Penny Appeal, which carried out the research alongside religious and Muslim community leaders in Yorkshire to put the guidance together, estimated that there are more than 4000 Muslim children in Care. It was stated that the number of foster and adoptive parents of the Islamic faith coming forward "by far" did not meet the amount of children requiring care. 

Common concerns from Muslims included how adoption may jeopardise a central Islamic belief that the lineage of a family must be preserved, and the fact that fostered or adopted children are not included automatically in Islamic laws of inheritance.

A common sense approach was necessary in these circumstances and as it was a communal obligation,meaning that actually if the Pakistani Muslims in Yorkshire did not take action to plug this gap, collectively as a community, the whole Muslim community would become actually blameworthy. The guidance, funded by a £200,000 grant from the Department of Education,endorsed by 100 leading UK Imams, community leaders and social care professionals,was launched on Social Media, aimed at addressing and counteracting a belief 

held by some within the faith and within families,that adoption is forbidden in Islam. 

Fake news and willingness to disseminate misinformation 

Unlike the above understanding arrived by consent, fake news and willingness to disseminate misinformation is spreading everywhere. There are two fundamental human drivers - hopes and fears. Many of them mostly unspoken or even unconscious. It is the spread of  this data which is worrying ever since the Facebook episode.The lack of sufficient legislation to set standards needed to enforce what companies can and cannot do, exposes the public at large to the dangers of fake information.

Governments are waking up to the reality that the destabilisation of democracies is a much more serious issue which needs to be addressed. Culture Secretary, Matt Hancock said the public want action. "The days of an unregulated Wild west are over. This is the moment for government to broker a new settlement between tech companies,societies and the state, to put more power and control back in the hands of the people who use social media." Laws on the use of the internet would be soon introduced."It is not for companies to decide on the delicate balance between privacy and innovation, but for society as a whole."

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web,called the Cambridge Analytica furore a "serious moment for the web's future". He called on people to"build a web that reflects our hopes & fulfils our dreams more than it magnifies our fears & deepens our divisions".
                                                                    

A highly complex ecosystem   

The ad -supported internet has created a highly complex ecosystem made up of thousands of companies which overtly and covertly track and profile people's every move. Cambridge Analytica is just one firm that exploits this system for political campaigning, but others extend into issues such as credit scoring, hiring processes,policing and insurance. 

The nature of corporate surveillance must sooner rather than later be made accountable to the public. 

Victor Cherubim