Resources

Report text is at: www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6462.txt

The report from the event was released at the end of January 2012; the event was December 8–9, 2010: the IETF’s Internet Architecture Board (IAB) co-hosted an Internet privacy workshop with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Internet Society (ISOC), and MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).

The objective was to discuss some of the fundamental challenges in designing, deploying, and analyzing privacy-protective Internet protocols and systems, and to find ways to address such challenges in a systematic way. One of the key assumptions was that the topic of privacy is not an issue that can be looked at from an isolated perspective, but rather one that touches on many other standards development efforts. This vision of treating privacy as an overarching principle has since then be partially realized, for example by the establishment of the W3C Privacy Interest Group (itself part of the W3C Privacy Activity), or the IETF Privacy Program.

Topics of the workshop included the increasing ease of user/device/application fingerprinting (try the Panopticlick tool), difficulties in distinguishing first parties from third parties when making web requests, unforeseen information leakage, and complications arising from system dependencies. Some of the concrete technologies that were discussed were the W3C’s early P3P standard, HTTP cookies, HTTP referrer headers, private browsing modes in web browsers, Do Not Track (DNT) technologies, the Tor onion router, the Geolocation API, and the OAuth protocol. Beyond the technological level, the workshop also addressed problems with transparency and user awareness, the difficulty of achieving balance between business, legal, and individual incentives, and the role of regulation in pushing for this balance. The tension between privacy protection and usability was also a major topic. For example, using Tor protects you from network surveillance, but it decreases browsing speed. Disabling cookies can protect you from being tracked by websites, but it impacts personalization.

The workshop concluded with a set of recommendations each single one of which is highly relevant for the PDE: The need to develop a privacy terminology and privacy threat models; The responsibility for protecting privacy to be split between protocols, APIs, applications, and services; The minimization of user data; The goal to give users granular control over their privacy; And the challenge to find the right balance between privacy and usability. A press release, meeting minutes, as well as the accepted position papers and slides are available for further information.

Network from Michael Rigley on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/34750078

According to Michael Rigley, the average user has 736 pieces of personal data collected every day and service providers store this information for one to five years. 

The video explores the “secret life of our MMS data and the tradeoffs we inadvertently face as we choose convenience of communication over privacy and control of personal data,” writes Maria Popova at BrainPickings.org.

We recommend this video because it explains in plain english the types of data people generate as they use their mobile devices, what metadata is and how it is then used to make meaning from the data and what is crucial is that most people don’t know about how long the information is stored and how it is used by the phone company.

by Ed Busby, Tawfik Hammoud, John Rose, and Ravi Prashad

The gathering of online-user data is among the most exciting and controversial business issues of our time. It often brings up concerns about privacy, but it also presents extraordinary opportunities for personalized, one-to-one advertising.

The report highlights trends that are driving the supply side from advertisers and demand side from publishers each with a growing interest in building user profiles. It names trends that hamper growth including spending shifts to closed platforms like Facebook, concerns about accuracy, the proliferation of low-cost remnant inventory and a reluctance to share PII because of fears around regulation and public backlash. The article goes on to outline the different types of data that are collected and their view into the current marketplace for User Data with 6 distinct layers. They conclude with an their analysis of the implications for ecosystem companies.   They mention a personal-data ecosystem but it does not outline a future with user-centric tools and systems.

Get the full article: https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/marketing_technology_evolution_of_online_user_data/

www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TC_MFS_BigDataBigImpact_Briefing_2012.pdf

Given the flood of data generated by digital devices around the globe:

Researchers and policymakers are beginning to realise the potential for channelling these torrents of data into actionable information that can be used to identify needs, provide services, and predict and prevent crises for the benefit of low-income populations. Concerted action is needed by governments, development organizations, and companies to ensure that this data helps the individuals and communities who create it.

The report highlights a few key areas where this data could make the most difference:

• Financial Services
• Education
• Health
• Agriculture

They name user-centric solutions offering compelling possibilities.

Data ecosystem dynamics are highlighted as a future focus to consider different types of data, actors and their incentives along with proposing the development of a data commons.

Obstacle that are named include:

• Privacy and Security
• Data Personalization
• Data Sharing Incentives
• Human Capital

Novel approaches to overcoming these obstacles are named such as “data philanthropy” and of course Governments have a catalytic role to play.

By the UK Consultancy Control-Shift: Understanding Consumer Empowerment. Available free on their website.

Ctrl-Shift work as advisers to the Department of Business with their  membership in the ‘midata’ Project Board.

The paper is ripe with interesting thinking on our industry and the SWOT involved. They cover the key drivers – regulatory, economic/ commercial, technological and social – forging the new personal data landscape.

They also look at the trend towards individuals managing their own data. For organizations, this is a classic ‘left field’ disruption. It’s happening mostly beyond the radar of organizations’ existing concerns and systems, but nevertheless changing the environment in which they operate, including customer behaviors and expectations. An additional section looks at the new markets for Personal Information Management Services (PIMS) that these developments create.

Opus Research reports that a high percentage number of C-level executives indicate in this report that their company’s’ lack a defined strategy to deal with all the “personal data” provided by customers and prospects through a multitude of channels. Yet they also tell us of their plans to incorporate that data into “understanding intent” and forging better communications links that promote loyalty, profitability and product refinement.

This is a limited distribution report available on request from their site.

“Consumers are leaving an exponentially growing digital footprint across channels and media, and they are awakening to the fact that marketers use this data for financial gain. This, combined with growing concerns about data security, means that individuals increasingly want to know when data (continued)

about them is being collected, what is being stored and by whom, and how that data is being used. As a result, a nascent industry is forming, with the promise of giving consumers control over their own data. We call this phenomenon personal identity management (PIDM). In this report, we outline what we expect PIDM will look like, and we provide Consumer Intelligence (CI) professionals with the insight to prepare for this impending change. “

Analysis

The PDEC met with Forrester and they clearly understood what we were saying.  Hats off to them for their vision in seeing the space. Of course, that’s what they are supposed to do, but hat’s off anyway.

You can download the full report from Personal’s website: http://blog.personal.com/2011/10/seeing-the-forrester-for-the-trees/