There are thousands of big and small players in the cloud market today, which is like a chaotic bazaar for big data. This has led to some key questions about data ownership, data security and privacy remaining half answered. Let us assume that you have stored your personal photos, your school assignments, your favorite reading in PDF files and your favorite music in mp4 files in a remote cloud server or with your favorite social media site.
Who owns this data?
If you are the owner of the data, do you know where and how it is stored? Importantly, with whom is it shared?
Ownership and control of data – your data – is a key concern. Do you have it? Or is it with the software provider of your mobile phone, Apple or Google, who helped you save the photos, music, audio or videos? Or is your personal data owned and used by the social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or WhatsApp where you shared it? Is your personal data in the possession of all platforms you visit? Or is it with cloud services like DropBox or Alibaba, where you have uploaded the data for safekeeping? Or is it with the hundreds of big and small less known data centres across the world that physically store the data?
Excerpts from Innovative Technologies for Future Living published by Routledge in Sept 2023
