Should social data be able to affect us financially?
Does Facebook care more about protecting users' privacy or keeping social data for themselves? Is insurers having access to IoT data the future of insurance?
Is having open traffic and economic data dangerous? Were Google right to publicly reveal a Microsoft bug? Why has hospital patient data become a ransomware target? Did Vote Leave win the EU referendum by leveraging the power of data?
A carefully curated summary of the top data-related news and trends from the week:
Data privacy
Admiral launched a new app which uses social data to tailor car insurance quotes for new drivers 🚗 - which was BLOCKED by Facebook within hours as it broke data privacy terms. ⛔ Interesting idea by Admiral to use another new stream of data to tailor deals following the success of black boxes; but can you really tell how safe of a driver someone will be from their Facebook profile? Should comments made on social media be able to affect us financially? 💰
Alex Hern, however, argues that Facebook just wants to keep the data for themselves - rather than particularly care about protecting users' privacy. 🤔 The Admiral app was an opt-in option and designed to help first-time drivers get an affordable car insurance offer - so WHY should Facebook deny the public the right to use their own social data? Using social logins has become common practice for many apps - but apparently only when Facebook are benefiting...🤐
But, conversely, is this just the start of insurers wanting access to more personal data - such as through IoT devices - to MONITOR CUSTOMERS? Will the future insurance-model revolve around "dataveillance for discounts"?! For example, where insurers can monitor your fridge for fatty foods - which then affects your health or life insurance premium. SCARILY viable. -- So was Facebook right to publicly push back to the potential future dangers of insurance companies collecting more and more personal data? ⚖
Security
Chancellor Philip Hammond announced plans to spend £1.9bn on cybersecurity - to tackle scammers and defend businesses: "we will not only defend ourselves in cyberspace, we will strike back when we are attacked." ⚔ Hammond also added that hackers are developing techniques to disrupt electrical grids and airports. Timely - as Tim Berners-Lee warns of the dangers of hackers accessing open economic or traffic data - with the potential to send a whole city into a standstill by controlling the flow of traffic. 🚙🚙🚙
Google disclosed information regarding Adobe and Microsoft "critical vulnerabilities" - which Russian hackers have supposedly been actively exploiting 👀 - by sending spear-phishing emails to trick recipients into clicking on malicious links or opening bogus attachments. Microsoft has criticised Google for publicising the bug before they could rectify the situation.
A life threatening cyber-attack SHUT DOWN three UK hospitals. ⛔⛔⛔ The malware caused hundreds of planned operations, outpatient appointments and diagnostic procedures to be cancelled. Electronic medical records have become a target for hackers - as the hospital will generally pay the ransom as any delay in treatment could result in a patient's death.
Miscellaneous
INTERESTING opinion piece by Laura Kuenssberg: did Vote Leave win the EU referendum by leveraging the power of data? 🤔 They developed a Voter Intention Collection System (VICS) which made them ultra responsive in real time - for example by creating a star ratings system so local teams knew exactly where the most fruitful door knocking session would be. A game changer for political campaigns? 🤓
