Official data controllers protect because they have a legal obligation to; commercial organisations do too – and commercial interest. With more data breaches publicised people seem to be less trusting than ever before. And people are clever – they seem to reduce their requirements for trust when they receive something in return. (It would be nice to have some real evidence for this beyond the anecdotal.) Trust has become more complex. Data subjects (or customers of internet services) seem australia rcs data to be more acutely aware of the context in which they provide personal information.
But, with some sorts of data, for example, internet shopping sites, data subjects are not given an obvious choice – there is not what one would call informed consent, which means that re-use beyond the original service provided becomes more tricky – not impossible, but generally more ad hoc.
I believe that across the next decade or so, there will be a continued need to try and return to first principles. How do we best protect and respect the data subject while maximising the potential for use in research (and maximising the value that research can bring). My feeling is when we – as the data service community – demonstrate our commitment to the respect of data subjects and to the protection of those data subjects, access to many of the new forms of data will become easier. We also need to find ways of expressing that trust we have in the researchers and that we have in our secure settings and in ensuring that the data controllers and the data subjects are more aware of them.