Data Mining: Nothing is Secret Anymore

Every move you make online is being recorded. Data mining is all around us and almost every modern online technology is using it. From your car to your cellphone each input you make is being recorded. This data is being used in a wide variety of ways; some that seem small and insignificant and others that cause a great uproar. 

The problem with deciding what is ethical and what is not is that there is no clear answer. For any situation you have people who fall on both sides of the line and because this is a new field that is increasing everyday there are not many if any precedents too fall back on. The same people who have a problem with companies storing their messages are fine with data mining when it is convenient for them; Amazon keeping track of your recently purchased so you can easily reorder an item that you like. This all add to the problem of where the line should be drawn on companies using private information for someone’s advantage (either the customer or themselves).  Philosopher James H Moor theorizes these growing ethical problems in his paper Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies  “Moor’s Law: As technological revolutions increase their social impact, ethical problems increase.” Moor is correct in his thinking. As the technology world increases the ethical issues are going to grow with it.  

This issue is depicted on the television series Parks and Recreation.  

We see the town of Pawnee, Indiana happily accept the introduction of Gryzzl into their lives and its free Wi-Fi, but then object when their privacy is invaded, however Gryzzl does not believe they are in the wrong. This is a depiction of data mining and the use of private information going too far. Most people would disagree with the use of information in this way, but do the companies involved see it that way?

With companies and individual citizens disagreeing on what is ethical in the potential uses of private information it makes it harder to pass laws to determine what is and is not ethical. The further technology advances the more these issues are going to appear, which makes it critical that we come to the correct decision of what is ethical. Moor gives us three ways to improve our approach to ethical issues: “First, we need realistically take into account that ethics is an ongoing and dynamic enterprise; second improvement that would make ethics better would be establishing better collaborations among ethicists, scientists, and technologists; third improvement that would make ethics better would be to develop more sophisticated ethical analyses.”  These three steps are a good start to this problem, but we can always to more to make sure every action taken is ethical. Always remember what you do online is being recorded.