Big data and privacy

Cultural production, the manufacturing and media industries and government are now all carried out, almost exclusively, using digital networks — often relying on third-party cloud services. At the same time we are increasingly, sometimes painfully, aware that these systems are not only vulnerable but actually promote systematic snooping and analysis of our data en masse.

Terms like Big Data and Privacy have assumed new dimensions and accordingly, awareness of data protection and the availability of encryption applications, even for consumer use, has grown enormously. The use of cryptography is nothing new; rather it actually drove the internet retail revolution (e.g. by guaranteeing the security and privacy of financial transactions or by facilitating the protection of intellectual property).

While consumers still do not regularly protect the confidentiality of documents or messages, encrypted transactions have become mandatory in many areas for a long time in order to ensure authenticity and authority and to protect the privacy of the individual. Security has become highly visible within public bodies such as universities (e.g. establishing the authenticity of theses), libraries and public agencies (e-government) as well as end users.

Long-term archiving already places high demands on information systems and organisational / technical processes and is the subject of current research. The problems of protecting this data from unauthorised access, whilst simultaneously ensuring its integrity and accessibility for decades to come increase complexity and have become a major research area in its own right — not least in terms of the underlying sustainability of the systems and methods employed. The inexorable trend of departure from outright ownership - of everything from software licenses to music tracks — demonstrates the headlong convergence of many of these issues.

Incidents involving the deactivation of licensing servers resulting in users being prevented from listening to purchased pieces of music or the inability to search through emails when one utilises open source encryption programs show that the use of cryptography also creates new dependencies and moves the burden of accessibility from the client to the provider.

Digital Rights Management (DRM), licensing and copy protection systems are also widely used in the mass production of cultural goods. Sometimes even the access to the digital resource is completely controlled by the manufacturer (or publisher in the case of electronic publications). The result is a loss of control for institutions of cultural preservation such as libraries and archives. The long-term preservation of these resources is subject to restrictions imposed by DRM encryption and de facto technical limitations. Bypassing these systems is technically complex and not always legally permissible.