In the Future, Our Current Views of Personal Data Will Be Shocking

The way we view personal data in this early Internet age will continue to change and evolve, until one day, we'll be looking back at this period and find that we are shocked regarding how we didn’t see people’s digital bits as their own, and see them something we should respect and protect the privacy and security of.

Right now, my private, network-shared, or even public posts are widely viewed as a commodity, something the platform operator and other companies have every right to buy, sell, mine, extract, and generally do things with as they wish. Very few startups see these posts as my personal thoughts; they simply see the opportunity for generating value and revenue as part of their interests. Sure, there are exceptions, but this is the general view of personal data in this Internet age.

We are barely 20 years into the web being mainstream, and barely over five years into mobile phones being mainstream. We are only beginning to enter even more immersions of Internet in our lives via our cars, televisions, appliances, and much more. We are only getting going when it comes to generating and understanding personal data, and the impacts of technology on our privacy, security, and overall human well-being. What is going on right now will not stay the norm, and we are already seeing signs of pushback from humans regarding ownership of their data, as well as our privacy and security.

While technology companies and their investors seem all powerful right now and many humans seem oblivious to what is going on, the landscape is shifting, and I’m confident that humans will prevail, and there will be pushback that begins helping us all define our digital self and reclaiming the privacy and security we are entitled to. When we look back on this period in 50 years, we will not look favorably on companies and government agencies who exploited human’s personal data. We will see the frenzy over Big Data generation, the accumulation of Big Data, and the treating of it like a commodity instead of something that belongs to a human as deeply troubling.

Which side of history are you going to be on?