Big Data y privacidad

With a focus on highlighting the actions necessary to generate confidence in the exploitation of massive data in Latin America, the “Big Data and Privacy” panel was developed as a parallel event to the Forum of the Latin American and Caribbean countries on Sustainable Development 2019. The director of the GobLab UAI, María Paz Hermosilla, was invited to participate in the event to contribute from her knowledge as an expert in ethical data management.

On the occasion, the academic added to the opinion that Big Data has great social benefits, however, explained the need to make responsible use of data to correctly manage information about citizenship and guarantee privacy, equity, transparency and accountability.

In this regard, Hermosilla presented as the main obstacle the lack of Big Data management standards that allow protecting privacy: “compliance with laws is not enough. Governments must also seek a social license, defined as the acceptance by the community of the way in which the data is used. ”

The panel was attended by five more experts who addressed the need to legislate and build trust bases with citizens to be able to put the use of big data at the service of society.

Among them, Fredy Rodríguez, data coordinator of the Center for International Strategic Thought explained that Big Data as a non-traditional source of information is integrated into the decision-making process since “it allows to measure and contrast official data and based on it to make public policy decisions that allow us to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals ”.

The call of the discussion was to take advantage of the potential of mass data for the social good without sacrificing privacy, to rethink how we think about risks to ensure citizenship, and manage a data protection system to build trust in the people who hand over the information. At the end of the day, Big Data is useful to solve public problems.