It’s easy to say that we should let things evolve and they’ll turn out OK. But I think we, collectively as data professionals, could do better. We could do more to form expectations both on the consumer side and the creation side of the data picture.
For consumers, you *hear* people say there’s no such thing as online privacy, but I think people understand the implications of all of these big data solutions. We need to first help people understand. Understand the pros and cons and then start the conversations about how things should go forward. Let’s not leave it to chance.
If we can help people understand the benefits, I think we can explain the risks and start addressing those too. If we don’t, we’ll "protect by backlash" be working in a completely reactive mode when a breach is experienced or when surprises are found for how data is used. It just will be a lot more brutal than it should be and won’t help the industry move forward.
How do we start these conversations? Try searching on "Database News" Hits come back about new big data databases for this issue or that. It’s all fine, but entirely without overall direction and thought and wide open to overstepping expectations.
It’s time, I think, to drive, rather than just go along for the ride.
What do you think? Let me know…