Data mining is the related technique used to extract information from web data and social media services automatically. On the positive side, it helps companies build detailed customer profiles and gain marketing intelligence. However, web mining poses a threat to some essential ethical values like privacy and individuality.
Data mining itself is not ethically problematic. Ethical issues arise when mining is executed over data of a personal nature. Here are some of the ethical problems of web mining.
Invisible Data Gathering
The essential ethical issue with data mining is that if someone is not aware that their knowledge or information is being collected or how it will be used, they don’t have the chance to consent or not consent for the collection and use. This invisible information gathering is standard on the Web.
Privacy Invasion
A person can keep their privacy by limiting their access to other people. This is best achieved by restricting their information availability. If a person considers the amount of inappropriate information, they know that their privacy is at risk. Therefore, privacy can be violated when information concerning an individual is obtained, used, or disseminated, primarily if this happens without their knowledge or consent.
Inaccurate Data will Affect Certain Groups
Insurance companies collect data from many different sources. They merge them in different ways to calculate risk (expected lifespan, weather patterns for farming insurance, car accidents etc.). They then calculate premiums based on that risk. The better/more data they have, the better can they price the risk and the more they can manage their profits. When/if DNA analysis companies start selling anonymized data to insurance companies, they will be able to include it into their risk analysis. There will be a lot of biases, a lot of mistakes. On average, nothing will change, but there will be biased shifts in premiums in subgroups. If your data belongs to a subset, you might be negatively impacted even if you do not share every subgroup characteristic.
Database Security
Database security is closely related to privacy in an ethical sense. This is because database security inhibits the unauthorized dissemination of personal data results to enhance an individual’s capacity further to regulate access to their data.
Stereotyping
Patterns that are discovered in data mining are used to build profiles of characteristics or behavior. Data analysis held in the databases may show certain buying habits, social contact patterns, or financial decision patterns that appear to be associated with particular groups. Therefore, the profile produced is that of a hypothetical individual for which not a single natural person need exists.
To what extent to which government is accessing our social media data?
The 1987 Constitution explicitly states the protection of the right to privacy under Art. III, section 3, which is the Bill of Rights. Under Section 3, communication privacy is inviolable, except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order, by law, requires otherwise.
The right to privacy is also protected by the Data Privacy Act of 2012, and the Philippines have a data protection agency, the National Privacy Commission.
The Philippine government is also a signatory to several international human rights instruments that protects the right to privacy, including:
- the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR);
- the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);
- the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); and
- the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Therefore, the government has restricted access to our data, except upon lawful order of the court or when public safety or order, by law, requires otherwise.
