fairness

Broken promises

Broken promises

In a previous post I commented on research which seemed to suggest that consumers weren’t always acting honestly when they provided personal data to companies. Well, there’s news today of the other side of that general coin. When Google started it had a very neat proposition and a very clear position. A very clean, simple interface which presented the results of your search quickly and without obt... »

The sound of chickens coming home to roost

The sound of chickens coming home to roost

The issue of privacy, or more generally and accurately the issue of who owns what data, and the rights and obligations associated with the use of that data have clearly shot up the public agenda. A term that a few years ago would have been associated with what you could and couldn’t do or say in your own home is now the topic of daily discussion in the context of Google, Facebook, the NSA and GCHQ... »

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The opening line of Charles Dicken’s “A Tale of Two Cities” neatly captures the tenor of the current turmoil in the world of personal data. Or, as the Chinese curse says: “may you live in interesting times”… and we certainly live in interesting times. Hardly a day passes without, on the one hand, news of novel, imaginative and clever ways of using personal data, and on the other hand, tales of dat... »

If you’re human, it all comes down to trust

If you’re human, it all comes down to trust

Trust is a little word, but it deals with some very big issues, from what it means to be human to the wealth of nations. And it’s time that business took it seriously. Graham Greene, the English novelist and playwright, perhaps summed it up most concisely: “It is impossible to go through life without trust: to do so is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself” From the moment we are born... »