Posts Tagged ‘Real-Time’

Protecting Data Rights and the Free Flow of Information

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

This challenge of protecting data online is really putting a muzzle on using the full potential of today’s information technology. If we can solve this issue of protecting people’s data rights, we could realize the full potential of information technology to maximize the real-time sharing of information. This would be information that is complete, accurate, and timely that supports technology initiatives such as augmented reality, real-time web, real-time sensor networks, and so on.

There is No 100% Data Protection Guarantee. joeandrieu.com blog posting, Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing, gets me thinking that maybe we should be taking a broader view of not just focusing on protecting personal data, but focus on restricting the wrongful use of data. Joe is right in that we should assume that data cannot be fully protected. There is always going to be a hacker or someone’s carelessness that will “spill the beans”. There is no guarantee that data or data “rights” can be protected.

Protecting Online Data Much Like We Protect Real-World Property. Many people do not understand the issue of online data protection, and there are a variety of opinions on how to protect data online. In many aspects, protecting data online is not that much different from protecting real-world property. For example, look at the measures we take to protect a laptop that an employee may use at work and at home. The employee has a responsibility of taking reasonable measures to protect the theft of the laptop. The employer also has policies in place to secure its property. The general community has a moral obligation to protect private property. The Government also has the responsibility to protect property and punish violators. This same holistic approach is needed for protecting data online. Individuals, communities, companies, and governments need to be involved in protecting data rights.

Data Protection Versus Protecting the Wrongful Use of Data. In many cases online data protection measures should follow how we protect real-world property, but there is a key difference with protecting online data. Online data can be copied and transferred anytime, anywhere. Because of this, it may be best to focus more on restricting the wrongful use of data versus putting all our focus on data ownership rights and how to protect data online. We need to define who owns data and take reasonable measure to protect it, but we also need to take a more holistic approach. This means focusing on restricting the wrongful use of data.

Preventing the Wrongful Use of Data and the Free Flow of Information. We all need to pitch in to prevent hackers, thieves, mob mentality, and careless people from wrongfully using online data. We should all be watchful to prevent the wrongful use of personal data. We should all encourage and foster ways for people to be compensated for producing valuable information and content. Wrongful use of data and content should be discouraged and even punished. If we only take a data protectionist approach, it offers no guarantee that data will be protected, and just as bad, protectionist policies discourage the free flow of data as well as limiting the full potential of information technology.


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Can We Have Both: Real-Time Data and Personal Data Privacy?

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Increasingly a major challenge for businesses is how to balance the need for real-time data and still protect the privacy of personal data. With information becoming so mobile and real-time on the internet, there is a real danger of people losing their rights to privacy and even their freedoms. The question for businesses and society is how can people enjoy rich, real-time information, and not lose their freedoms?

The Personal Data Privacy Challenge. Ideally, data needed for an application is freely available. Free, accessible data is easy to move and transfer between computers in real-time. There are challenges when data is Personally Identifiable Information (PII). This is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual. In these situations data is needed to be protected both at rest (storage) and in motion. This can be done through procedural methods such as password protection or the use of encryption. More and more businesses and application developers are balancing the need for the free movement of data versus the need for personal data privacy.

The Social Debate of Personal Privacy. Our society as a whole is still coming to terms with personal data privacy versus reaping the benefits of social networks and real-time data. An example of this is where Facebook made their privacy policy significantly less restrictive for their hundreds of millions of subscribers. See RWW’s posting Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over, for more on Facebook’s privacy changes. My comments on this were as follows:

“Is Facebook’s privacy settings leading us into a new era of social openness or are they arrogantly deciding for us that we need no privacy? I do not like Facebook’s cavalier and drastic approach in changing their privacy policy, but the real question is whether their privacy policy is reflecting social norms, and as a society should we be giving a way our privacy for the benefits of social networking.

Privacy is so closely tied to freedom. If someone wants to control you and knows everything about you, they can control you and take your freedom away. If someone wants to control you and they have no information about you, it is difficult for them to control you.

In the decades before the internet, Americans had a lot of privacy. I would say that this was not always the norm. When the U.S. was first founded, your neighbor’s usually knew everything about you. If you committed adultery, you received a Scarlet Letter. Everyone knew it. It was not until our society started to become more mobile that we began to have a high degree of privacy.

Now with information becoming so mobile, we are losing our privacy again. How can we enjoy all this rich, real-time information, and not lose our freedoms?”

The benefits of real-time data versus the risk of losing personal data privacy is a thorny issue. Businesses will need to balance these issues in light of customer needs, Government guidance, and business service offerings.


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IT Innovation Using Real-Time Data – The End of Information Latency

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Since my military days, I have always had a passion for figuring out ways to shorten decision-making cycles. In most cases this has involved automating business processes and getting different systems and sensor devices to exchange data on a cyclic or on-demand basis. Now with the advent of the internet with faster and faster bandwidths, the possibility exists for businesses to about eliminate decision-making cycles.



Information Latency – A Prime Driver of Decision-Making Cycles. With the feasibility of businesses having real-time data, anywhere, any place, businesses need to re-think their decision-making cycles to eliminate information latency and harness real-time data. Instead of business operations having to wait on information, businesses can make decisions real-time. With real-time data, the possibility of “complete” information can be available in real-time, anytime. When you think about it, a lot of business decision cycles are based on waiting for reports or meetings to gain enough information to make a decision. With the potential of real-time data, anytime, anywhere, businesses have a real need to look at ways to innovate and transform their technology to harness real-time data and eliminate decision-making cycles driven by information latency.

Innovating Real-Time Decision-Making. With real-time data, USAF Col. John Boyd’s OODA decision-making loop becomes even more relevant to businesses. The OODA loop (for observe, orient, decide, and act) is a concept originally applied to military combat operations such as dogfights between fighter planes. The OODA loop has also been applied in the past to understand business operations. For businesses, shortening the OODA loop through information technology will always be a key innovation goal. With the advent of real-time data, IT innovation is even more key for businesses to make decisions faster and better in order to continue to offer superior products and services.


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