As if organizations didn’t capture enough data, organizations deployed the Internet of Things (IoT) to capture even more granular, low-latency customer and operational data. Add to the IoT data the ability to buy additional customer data from third-party aggregators, and these organizations were able to paint a very complete picture of their customers and how those customers interacted with their organizations.

Let’s look at how these massive advancements impact data collection as a whole.

Sensors, surveillance, and IoT

IoT refers to the utilization of sensors, processing capabilities, software, and various technologies in physical objects. These objects are interconnected and share data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks.

Our smartphones send out a steady stream of data to the vendors of the smartphone apps regarding where you are, what you are doing, and what you might be...

As discussed in the previous section, organizations, agencies, and third-party vendors are gathering and integrating data emitted from our daily activities. And they are using this treasure trove of data about us to influence our decisions, actions, and beliefs. Seems like the odds are stacked against the average citizen. However, government agencies around the world are trying to level the playing field and help to protect our data privacy.

Data protection and privacy laws

Governments worldwide are scrambling to avoid an avalanche of personal data privacy issues. Therefore, there are several regulatory efforts underway to try to protect your privacy, including:

• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in 2018 by the European Union (EU) on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area. The GDPR is essential to EU privacy law and human rights law.
• The California...

We mentioned in the previous chapter that “data is the new oil”. In the same way that oil drove economic growth in the 20th century, data will be the fuel that drives economic growth in the 21st century.

Companies collect and analyze your personal data with the objective of influencing your perspectives, decisions, and actions. Companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify monetize your data by uncovering the individual propensities and tendencies buried in your data and then using those personal propensities and tendencies to influence your purchase and usage decisions… and sometimes even your opinions.

Figure 2.9 shows how Google leverages your free search requests to create a market for advertisers willing to pay to place their products and messages at the top of your search results.

Figure 2.9: Data flows in a typical real-time bidding system (taken from eff.org/deeplinks/2020...

In this chapter, we explored the differences between data and big data, and how organizations use your personal data to understand your tendencies and propensities. We discussed how technologies such as the IoT and third-party data aggregators capture and analyze your transactions and activities to learn even more about your personal tendencies and propensities. We then explored data privacy efforts, both at the federal and state government levels to protect your data privacy, and how some organizations can just decide to ignore those protections for their own nefarious means. We wrapped up the chapter with a look at how one leading data monetization company – Google – provides free services in exchange for your data, which they subsequently monetize in a number of perfectly legal ways.

So, how can one protect themselves from being abused by their own data? The first step is awareness and vigilance. We must always be aware of how organizations capture and...

1. New York Times. We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/12/opinion/facebook-google-privacy-policies.html
2. Mobile Privacy. What Do Your Apps Know About You?: https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/mobile-privacy-apps
3. TechCrunch. Judge orders Amazon to turn over Echo recordings in double murder case: https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/amazon-echo-recordings-judge-murder-case/

Join our book’s Discord space

Join our Discord community to meet like-minded people and learn alongside more than 4000 people at:

https://packt.link/data