Abstract
This chapter argues that group privacy is a necessary element of a global perpective on privacy. Addressing the problem as a new epistemological phenomenon generated by big data analytics, it addresses three main questions: first, is this a privacy or a data protection problem, and what does this say about the way it may be addressed? Second, by resolving the problem of individual identifiability, do we resolve that of groups? And last, is a solution to this problem transferable, or do different places need different approaches? Focusing on cases drawn mainly from low- and middle-income countries, this chapter uses the issues of human mobility, disease tracking and drone data to demonstrate the tendency of big data to flow across categories and uses, its long half-life as it is shared and reused, and how these characteristics pose particular problems with regard to analysis on the aggregate level.
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Notes
- 1.
LMICs here are defined according to the World Bank’s definitions grouping countries, see: http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications, where LMICs have incomes of US$1036 – $12,616 per capita and high income countries (HICS) above that threshold. My particular focus is the low- and lower-middle-income countries, with an upper threshold of $4085 per capita, which includes India and most of Africa.
- 2.
The focus here is on data that are remotely gathered and can therefore either be classed as observed, i.e. a byproduct of people’s use of technology, or inferred, i.e. merged or linked from existing data sources through big data analytics (Hildebrandt 2013).
- 3.
Robert Kirkpatrick, interview with Global Observatory, 5/11/2012. Accessed online 19/2/2015 at http://theglobalobservatory.org/interviews/377-robert-kirkpatrick-director-of-un-global-pulse-on-the-value-of-big-data.html
- 4.
Directive, E. U. (1995). 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. Official Journal of the EC, 23(6).
- 5.
General Data Protection Regulation 5853/12.
- 6.
Dennis Broeders, keynote presentation, Responsible Data for Humanitarian Response conference, February 24–25, Leiden University, held at Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands.
- 7.
Interview with Nathaniel Raymond, Director, Signal Program on Human Security and Technology, Harvard University (25.2.2015).
- 8.
Raymond interview, (25.2.2015).
- 9.
Raymond interview, (25.2.2015).
- 10.
Nathaniel Raymond interview (25.2.2015).
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Taylor, L. (2017). Safety in Numbers? Group Privacy and Big Data Analytics in the Developing World. In: Taylor, L., Floridi, L., van der Sloot, B. (eds) Group Privacy. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 126. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46608-8_2
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