Data is the pulse of modern life, a valuable thread that runs through so many things, making data privacy incredibly important.
Data’s reach into our reality is so vast that it influences:
- The adverts you see – consider behavioural tracking,
- The music you listen to on apps like Spotify,
- Who you might match up with on the latest dating app,
- Who gets a personal loan, and even
- Which political party wins elections – think the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
It’s not only businesses that use data. Broader society also benefits tremendously from data flowing freely. Some of the benefits of the free flow of data include:
- Farmers using AI-powered drones to manage water levels in their crops, or
- The University of Texas finding a COVID vaccine based on AI (which was informed by pandemic health data), and
- Geolocation data enabling us to find missing children.
These important benefits show just how powerful this kind of personal data can be. But in the wrong hands, it can also be dangerous.
This is why it’s important to uphold the data protection laws that guide us on how to process personal data lawfully. These laws help regulate how we use personal data to ensure we have a just and fair society in which people have their own sovereignty and autonomy.
They set the rules for what we can and can’t do with data, and are an important part of protecting people from harm.
That’s why data privacy matters.
