Big Data can be described as “representing the information assets characterized by such a high volume, velocity and variety to require specific technology and analytical methods for its transformation into value.” If we take Big Data and combine it with artificial intelligence and facial recognition, it has the ability to intrude on people’s lives on a considerable scale. One’s right to privacy has become a pressing human rights issue worldwide.
Social media is being utilized by industries and companies to market their services and products and to monitor what users are saying about their brand.
Facebook can thank its two billion monthly active users for the vast amount of data that it stores daily. Every 60 seconds, roughly 136,000 photos are uploaded, 510,000 comments and 293,000 status updates are posted. This allows Facebook to store data on our location, who our friends are, what we look like, what we are doing, our likes and our dislikes.
Facebook can determine user behaviour in various ways:
- Firstly, by tracking its user’s cookies: if you are logged into Facebook and you simultaneously browse other websites, Facebook can track the sites that you are visiting.
- Secondly, facial recognition: where Facebook can track their users across the internet and other Facebook profiles with image data provided through user sharing.
- Thirdly, is in terms of tag suggestions: where Facebook suggests whom to tag in user photos, through image processing and facial recognition.
- Fourthly, by determining user behaviour by analysing the ‘Likes’: Researchers at Cambridge University and Microsoft Research show how the patterns of Facebook Likes can accurately predict your satisfaction with life, views and opinions, intelligence, emotional stability, religion, relationship status, age, gender, race, and political views—among various others.
Facebook successfully used Big Data when they effectively linked political activity to user engagement. This was when Facebook created a social experiment by creating a sticker allowing its users to declare “I Voted” on their profiles. Users who noticed the button were likely to vote and be vocal about the behaviour of voting if they saw their friends were partaking in it.
In future technology, applications should be developed and applied in accordance with human values that protect important rights and freedoms. Future technology applications should recognise and prevent algorithms from maintaining certain social biases and discrimination.
We learned from Facebook that what users share on our social media platforms can easily be used against them. The countless ways of collecting, analysing and sharing data pose questions about our understanding of what privacy is and how to best protect our right to privacy.