The
unauthorized “harvesting” of personal data of over fifty million Facebook users
by Cambridge Analytica is the latest in a continuing saga of data related
scandals. Breaking his long silence, Zuckerberg apologized to his billion plus users
worldwide and called it a “breach of trust” and vowed to take steps to protect
user data. But the damage has been done.
As many averred, Zuckerberg’s apology inherently assumes Facebook
users will continue to trust it and that all will be forgiven and it will be
business as usual. That may well turn out to be true. But given the seriousness
of this “breach of trust”, this may have serious consequences on its fortunes. One
immediate fallout is the #DeleteFacebook campaign that quickly went viral. Also
Facebook stock lost almost 9% in value.
Facebook’s supreme success rests on a business model built on
profiting from customer data and its priceless derivative – customer insights.
Notwithstanding Zuckerberg’s apology and promises to clean up, it is anybody
guess if he will really follow up or implement only cosmetic changes.
This brings into focus the importance of consumer data in today’s data
driven economy. It is common knowledge that vast amounts of data are being
generated every day, particularly by social media users. Using sophisticated
analytics, this data can be mined to yield powerful insights about users. In
fact it is a common practice for marketing companies to use these insights to
create a full behavioral personality profile or characteristics of an
individual.
Products and service or even a political ideology could then be
effectively tailored or custom fitted for that profile in what is called micro
targeting. This data driven super customization has wide applications – in
retail marketing, business espionage, political campaigns etc. It is for this
reason that today data is seen as the most important resource and companies
would do anything to get their hands on it.
Given the multiple use of this cutting edge knowledge resource born
out of the confluence of technology and high end quantitative skills, it is
indeed awing and worrisome at once. It is like a knife that can be used in the
kitchen as well as to kill. The exploits of companies like Cambridge Analytica have
justifiably caused disquiet among large sections of society.
Cambridge Analytica, like many other companies, are way ahead of the
curve in using these precious insights in seeking to “change audience
behavior”, or to generate a favorable outcomes in the targeted populations in a
general election. Hence their popularity with political parties worldwide,
including India.
As can be seen, there is nothing illegal per se in Cambridge
Analytica’s business model. In fact all major corporations worldwide are
engaged in exploiting data in one form or other for their bread and butter. But
the illegal gathering of profile information of millions of users without their
express consent is what is under scrutiny.
But what has been a rude wake up call for many is the fact that
companies like Cambridge Analytica can potentially disrupt a democratic process
like an election. Undercover videos shared by Britain’s Channel 4 News show how
the company actively planted news – typically fake news in the “bloodstream of
the internet and let it grow” to achieve desired social and electoral outcomes.
This it very much akin to what the Soviet Union was doing decades ago to
brainwash its people. The distinctions between legal and illegal is often
blurry and Cambridge Analytica and its ilk appear to have exploited it to the
hilt. To confound the issue, in many countries, regulators have still not woken
up to combat this malefic use of data.
The problem is indeed acute in countries like India where political
parties have shrewdly worked off radar to use the services of Cambridge
Analytica and its subsidiaries to “influence social behavior” in the election
process. How far the election processes have been subverted is anybody’s guess.
But it is equally futile to point fingers at the Congress party or the BJP
since all of them have at some point in time used these services. It is like the Democrats in the US blaming the
Republicans because the Trump campaign used them in 2016. But it came back on
the Democrats when it was revealed that they too - the Obama campaign in 2012
-had extensively used these services.
The scary part here is that the users whose data is being fought over,
have practically no say in the matter because they have already shared their
private information on the internet. It has left their hands and there is no
way they can get it back. How this will be used and shared or who will use this
is being decided by companies like Facebook who are primarily motivated by
profits and not overly concerned about user privacy. That such breaches and data
hacks occur regularly speak volumes of the gap between current laws and their rigorous
enforcement.
And this will definitely not be the last of data breaches or breaches
of trust. But the real problem is that we are confronted by an insurmountable
issue here that threatens individual liberty and the inalienable right to lead
a private, yet social life.
In the end, these social engineers who stole personal information of
millions of unsuspecting users in reality turned out to be deadly data
terrorists who deployed their stolen assets to disrupt cherished democratic
processes and skewed election outcomes in so many countries at the bidding of
their paymasters.
The bitter truth is that we live in a world where nothing is private. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and any
number of known and lesser known companies already know more about us than we
can imagine. We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that, however unpalatable
it may be, data privacy is just a mirage.
The need for agile, yet draconian laws on data usage together with
forensic monitoring of disposal of data has been repeatedly pointed out by
experts in the field. Hopefully, the wait may not be long. Social media
companies have long taken the naïve user for a ride. It is time they stepped
off the roller coaster.
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