Perspectives on Data Economy - Balancing Profits, Power and Privacy

The Digital revolution has permeated every aspect of business and personal life. It has brought huge disruption to society and the way businesses are run. In the last decade, data has been recognized as an important asset that could be deployed for various objectives like business forecasting, customer propensity scoring, etc. In the recent past, we have seen significant debates on the ethics of data collection and its professed use by those organizations and individuals who collect personal data. Governments have responded with enaction of laws governing fair and ethical use of data and organizations have started self-regulating themselves and putting internal controls in place for protecting personal data. Interestingly, we see different motivations from various stakeholders for collecting or providing data. Enterprises collect data for effective targeting of customers and enlarging their market base, driving higher revenue and profits.  Governments collect data for various purposes like public health, maintaining law and order, and effective administering of citizen benefits. Individuals disclose their personal data, which is either mandated by law, employment contract, or purely voluntarily in their social media posts. Data collection and its use have multiple implications in the social, ethical, privacy, and economic dimensions. From the perspective of individuals, data is also a way to exercise power and control over the larger population. The forces of profits, power, and privacy seem to be interacting in intricate and subtle ways to shape an emergent future world scenario. 

This lecture provides some macro-level nominative and positive perspectives on the delicate balance between Profits, Privacy, and Power and discusses some future likely scenarios that could have significant societal, economic, commercial, and governance impact.