“With great strength comes great responsibility”*.
Today, too many organizations using big data seem only to be limited by what they dare admit to the public.
Don’t follow their example. Legally, you may own the data, but you should behave as if it were owned by the people who generated it.
This means transparency, making it easy for people to see what data you hold about them, and what you’re doing with it. It means asking for permission before using their data in new ways. It means letting people control who else has access to that data.
Data privacy is becoming a competitive differentiator. Organizations that ignore these common-sense rules will (eventually!) pay the price.
Other suggested rules can be found at the User Data Manifesto site.
* Either Voltaire, or Uncle Ben in Spiderman
Comments
3 responses to “Big Data is A Powerful Weapon. Use it Wisely.”
[…] data is an incredibly powerful weapon. We must use it wisely and industry vendors should be in the forefront of addressing the ethical […]
Timo, completely agree with this, but was surprised to see that you have not yet “signed” the User Data Manifesto yourself ;o) Any particular reason?
Maarten — good question! Answer is (a) I don’t really believe in manifestos, (b) it sounded a bit too much like an idealistic wish list than a set of core principles…