Safety in Numbers? Group Privacy and Big Data Analytics in the Developing World

in Group Privacy: the Challenges of New Data Technologies, Eds. Taylor, L., van der Sloot, B., Floridi, L. Springer: 2017

22 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2016 Last revised: 17 Mar 2017

See all articles by Linnet Taylor

Linnet Taylor

Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society

Date Written: October 6, 2016

Abstract

This chapter argues that group privacy is a necessary element of a global perspective 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 transferrable, 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.

Keywords: drones, epidemiology, migration, Ebola, mapping, satellites, mobile phones, Kenya, Sudan, Africa, data mining, predictive analytics

Suggested Citation

Taylor, Linnet, Safety in Numbers? Group Privacy and Big Data Analytics in the Developing World (October 6, 2016). in Group Privacy: the Challenges of New Data Technologies, Eds. Taylor, L., van der Sloot, B., Floridi, L. Springer: 2017 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2848825

Linnet Taylor (Contact Author)

Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society ( email )

PO Box 90153
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

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