UK Public Annoyed with GHCQ Data Collection
October 30, 2016
I don’t have a dog in this fight, and I don’t want this type of pooch. The annoyance story “Public Wants Illegally Collected Data on Them Deleted.” The write up explains that a survey “proves” that the citizens of the United Kingdom want allegedly illegally collected data about them deleted. Here’s the passage I highlighted:
Comparitech.com and OnePoll have polled 1,000 members of the UK public, and 70 per cent wants that data gone. This is something the IPT failed to stipulate in its ruling. For almost half (45 per cent), a compensation is in order, as well. The ruling has decreased the trust the UK public had in the government, and two thirds (68 per cent) also said it had lost trust in social media and email. Half (51 per cent) is more concerned about hackers stealing data, 14 per cent were most concerned with the government, and 31 per cent couldn’t decide between the two.
Let’s assume the sample size for a country with a population of about 70 million is just dandy. The two major data points of removing data and compensating citizens for the data are interesting. But what does “deleted” mean? How does one know if the data have been deleted or just converted to values in a metadata repository? And what’s with the compensation? What is the value of a single datum for a single person? Data gain value when normalized and aggregated. Calculating what a single UK citizen should receive might be a challenge for the wonks at Cambridge U. but I am confident someone in the economics unit is up to the task.
The really fascinating item in the write up is this statement:
A third (38 per cent) is willing to pay to increase their online privacy. There’s a good business idea for you.
A lot of people will fork over cash to have privacy. What a quaint notion in the UK and for some folks in the British government.
Stephen E Arnold, October 30, 2016
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