From the course: DJ Patil: Ask Me Anything

What are the real threats to personal data?

From the course: DJ Patil: Ask Me Anything

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What are the real threats to personal data?

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(upbeat music) - My data, my family's data, my kid's data was all stolen in a security breach. Was referred to the Office of Personal Management, the OPM breach. Where a contractor had left a hole in the Federal Government for all my security information. So all of my security information's been stolen, but also my data's been stolen from the credit agencies. So someone knows not only my security status, but also how to potentially leverage any economics that I have. That's really, deeply troubling on many many levels. And yet, we're still not talking about those problems with the degree that we have. Most of the time the sensationalization focuses on the fact that another breach has happened. But it doesn't carry over to the action. How fast have we already forgotten that we had a major breach? The other one that we don't talk about is what data do people have about us that we don't know about, and how is that data being used. Does your doctor believe the data that's about you is theirs or is it yours? Does the hospital who runs these systems, do they think it's your data or theirs? Turns out in many cases they still believe it's their data. And that is really an odd notion to get your head around. And so, sensationalization that I think we have to really be focused on with regards to the media is why aren't we having the conversation? Why can't we stay on this issue long enough to come up with a constructive resolution. If I'm a cancer patient, and my data is fragmented over 500 different databases in six healthcare systems, why is it that I have to spend a week going to each place and filing out paperwork to go get this data so that I can just get the quality of care that I need. We should be talking about this data that is being collected that is out there that is being used to judge your credit rating is biased against black people, Hispanic people. How do we challenge that, how do we see in to that data? How do we push ourselves to say is there another way to think about this data. To understand how this data may be using to actually impact us. And we now know concretely that if you're black and under certain criteria you will not get the same type of loan that your peer who's white is. When we talk about the power of data, we also have to ask how are people using the power of data to disenfranchise people. That portion of the use of data and that combined with breaches is a much bigger conversation that we have to ask. And you know, it's not too far off that we have the ability to tag a person, wrongly or rightly, and you know forever on out that data trail follows them. With that data trail, there isn't an easy way to get a second chance. We have to find a better approach morally. And that takes a radical approach to rethink it. That is one of the reasons why the role of the chief, the role of the U.S. Chief Data Scientist was created. That mission is to responsibly unleash the power of data to benefit all Americans. The two words carefully chosen in that are responsibly unleash the power of data and benefit all Americans. Because most of the time technology doesn't benefit everyone. But we're better than that. If we're the so called technologists that can build amazing things, well let's do it for everyone. (upbeat music)

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