Tiana Putric
DARE Project: The Future of Big Data: Understanding Digital Service Data Retention Policies and Implications for Online Privacy
Program(s) of Study: Disaster & Emergency Management
Project Supervisor: Jonathan Obar
DARE was a transformative experience that left me with several new skills and insights. I gained experience collecting, analyzing, and summarizing data retention policies and contracts from global digital service providers; learned how to evaluate policies against privacy laws and normative regulatory philosophies; and contributed to the data retention body of knowledge.
Project Description:
As governments (including here in Canada) contemplate the future of privacy law, researchers should ask, what will happen to the Big Data of today, many years from now? Only focusing on the present ignores the potential of future methods for organizing, analyzing, sharing, and using data. Years from now new insights may be drawn from data collected over time, with new algorithms to answer new questions, for purposes beyond current consideration. What will be legal or “normalized” as data-driven decision-making pervades all aspects of our lives? What will happen to our Big Data in that context? How will this impact our future digital reputation and eligibility? This project will begin to address these questions by evaluating the extent to which digital service providers are transparent about data retention policy. This will involve assessments of how long data is kept, and for what purposes. This work extends from Dr. Obar’s research on “data privacy transparency”, which connects to literatures on Big Data, privacy, “meaningful transparency”, and individual agency. Challenges the literature articulates about privacy policies detailed enough to inform, but accessible enough to engage, will also be central to this effort. The project will involve collecting and analyzing data retention policies from digital services including: social media companies, entertainment and e-commerce apps, internet service providers, and a variety of other popular services. Policy analysis will involve assessments based on privacy law in Canada, and normative regulatory philosophy drawn from the literature.The Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (DARE) – Undergraduate enables our students to meaningfully engage in research projects supervised by LA&PS faculty members. Find out more about DARE.