FTC Can Research, Educate, Advocate About Big Data, Say Brill, Ohlhausen
The FTC’s role in big data is as an educator, researcher and advocate for notice and consent, said two FTC commissioners at separate events Wednesday. While Republican Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen stressed the FTC’s ability to “help promote a government industry and consumer culture that embraces open data and innovative data analysis,” Democratic Commissioner Julie Brill said “we need to think hard about how we can apply some of the principles about notice and choice” to the mobile space that’s driving big data collection. Ohlhausen spoke at an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Center for Data Innovation event. Brill was at an event organized by The Hill.
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One of the FTC’s greatest strengths is its research into burgeoning markets, both Ohlhausen and Brill said. The big data market -- fueled by data analysis products and mobile apps -- is at the center of the FTC’s attention now, they said.
Ohlhausen said the FTC’s research in this area can help both industry and government. “By understanding the limits for big data and emphasizing the need for human judgment in the use of such tools, the FTC can help tamp down the hype over big data and help create a healthier regulatory atmosphere,” she said. The commission should “critically” evaluate “the claims of both the pop science promoters of big data as the magic bullet solution and the naysayers who view massive consumer harm from all known algorithms.”
This is part of the FTC’s guidance, which can benefit government agencies, Ohlhausen said. “The FTC can guide other government agencies on how to open access to data while mitigating privacy risks through things like aggregation, de-identification, use-based limitations, and other techniques,” she said.
Brill emphasized the need to focus on consent for data collection and sharing. “I think that’s a critical distinction,” she said. Oftentimes, individuals are willing to let their information be used for big data analysis but turned off if they don’t know their data is being used. She referenced the well known case in which retailer Target started sending a pregnant teenager coupons for pregnancy-related items before her own family knew of her pregnancy (http://nyti.ms/1i4GnRS). The problem wasn’t that the teen was getting coupons, “but that that sensitive information was known to a third party,” Brill said. In her decades working on these issues, Brill said consumers have told her, “I want them to use that information, but they should have asked me about it.”