Digitising Privacy

Google, Facebook and other digital related services have been hitting the mainstream news headlines recently over concerns regarding privacy. These concerns remind us how disruptive digital technologies remain in the public mind.

When something is digitised and released on the web it becomes very hard to recall and eradicate. Additionally, the web is driven by computing power, so taking large amounts of data and pattern matching and analysing it is a very obvious use of the technology. Increasingly though through mobile technology our physical location can also be shared online. That is a powerful combination, very attractive to anyone (or any organisation) wanting to better understand what people are doing, what they are interested in and where they are doing it.

Legislation around the world provides web users with varying levels of protection. The problem is, is that most legislation of this type pre-dates much of the current technology and its power, and increasingly availability. Our legislative mind set still remains analogue and as such digital becomes a bolt on not a central focus. The recent UK Digital Economy Act and the tension over copyright and digital distribution demonstrates that well, despite its supposed digital focus.

Increasingly for business digital cannot remain an option on the outside, something to be tinkered with but instead, websites, mobile phone apps and multimedia need to play a central role. However, just as with any other asset business needs to think strategically about its role. 3 Sheep is running a strategic workshop on 9 June to help companies start that process.

The issues of privacy and the blending of the physical world and digital technologies is going to offer great opportunities for businesses and organisations over the next few years. Many are already carrying devices with access to location information and the web through our mobile phones, this is set to increase. The privacy concerns being faced by Google and Facebook show the thinking process that we need to go through to make the best of this opportunity.