(...) formal definitions may never capture some of the nuances in common understandings of “privacy” and “utility,” nuances that are highly contextual and that depend on social factors, not just numbers. By analyzing some of those nuances, we can begin to understand the policy choices inherent in deciding whether and how to regulate data privacy across varying social contexts.See also Wu's paper here.
Open might mean public domain, or liberal licensing, or just not withholding. Open needs to be reconciled with privacy (an under-acknowledged challenge). And it needs technical infrastructure, policy infrastructure, boundary organizations, and new norms to flourish.As a senior fellow at FasterCures, chief commons officer at Sage Bionetworks, data commons expert and advocate John Wilbanks aims to advance the conversation about the term "Open Science" and its different facets. (Read more...)
A Harvard professor has re-identified the names of more than 40% of a sample of anonymous participants in a high-profile DNA study, highlighting the dangers that ever greater amounts of personal data available in the Internet era could unravel personal secrets.Forbes.
It is “big data,” the vast sets of information gathered by researchers at companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft from patterns of cellphone calls, text messages and Internet clicks by millions of users around the world. Companies often refuse to make such information public, sometimes for competitive reasons and sometimes to protect customers’ privacy. But to many scientists, the practice is an invitation to bad science, secrecy and even potential fraud.
New York Times.