House of Commons - Responsible Use of Data - Science and Technology Committee

Responsible Use of Data - Science and Technology Committee Contents

1 Introduction

Social media data

1. Modern society is generating an "ever-increasing" volume of data and there is a lot of speculation on how the data generated by social media platforms might be utilised by both private and public organisations.[1] techUK[2] defined social media data as "'information relating to user-generated content on the internet"[3] and, as it produces data sets too large for traditional data processing, belongs to what is generally categorised as big data.[4]

2. The Government outlined some statistics drawn from Digital Insights about public engagement with social media platforms in 2013: every day 400 million tweets are posted to Twitter, 350 million photos are added to Facebook and over a billion videos are viewed on YouTube.[5] The Internet Association wrote that "analysis of large datasets can lead to the discovery of new opportunities, unanticipated insights, and unexpected services that bring value to society, businesses, and governments"[6] and the Government considered that social media data may have the "potential to transform public and private sector organisations" whilst driving "research and development".[7]

3. The Information Commissioner's Office's (ICO) report, Big Data and Data Protection, published in July 2014, described big data as an area that was "fast-evolving".[8] The infrastructure required to support this growing field is clearly an important aspect for future Government activity and one that the Government is addressing through partnership with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Administrative Data Research Network[9] and investments in a number of projects including:

i) "£42 million announced this year to establish the 'Alan Turing Institute for Data Science' which will research new ways of collecting, storing and analysing huge data sets.

ii) £189 million announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement to support big data and energy-efficient computing projects such as the National Biomedical Informatics Institute and a UK network of Administrative Data Research Centres.

iii) Setting up the Connected Digital Economy Catapult (CDEC), which will receive over £50 million investment from the Technology Strategy Board. CDEC will play a leading role in developing new tools, platforms and assets to enable innovative UK companies to take advantage of the commercial opportunities provided by the growth in data."[10]

4. As the information delivered through social media platforms develops rapidly in terms of the volume of data and number of users, there is a tension between obtaining data for commercial/administrative use and the ethical dimensions of using social media data that resonates, as Professor Liesbet van Zoonen, Principle Investigator of the IMPRINTS project[11], pointed out, with the disturbing themes raised in the novel Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell.[12] Orwell painted a world in which the privacy of individuals had been severely eroded and where personal information was used by the state to control citizens. Whilst the concerns raised in this inquiry did not reach the same epic proportions, there were serious misgivings raised in relation to obtaining informed consent for the use of citizens' data.

Data protection legislation

5. The law concerning the rights of individuals in relation to their data was outlined in the EU Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) and transposed into UK law through the Data Protection Act 1998.[13] The growth of the use of big data, and services such as social media platforms, has coincided with the original EU legislation being revisited. The EU Commission published a draft General Data Protection Regulation, in January 2012, to update data protection legislation.[14] The Regulation would, as drafted, expand on the rules governing consent and privacy issues such as the 'right to be forgotten' and mandating the collection of explicit consent for data usage. For example, the conditions for consent outlined in Article 7 are drafted as follows:

1. The controller shall bear the burden of proof for the data subject's consent to the processing of their personal data for specified purposes.

2. If the data subject's consent is to be given in the context of a written declaration which also concerns another matter, the requirement to give consent must be presented distinguishable in its appearance from this other matter.

3. The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

Our inquiry

6. Although social media data is a potentially valuable source of information for both economic and governance purposes, the opportunities that exist are accompanied by a series of ethical challenges surrounding the issues of privacy and informed consent. These ethical challenges are international in nature. We wanted to ensure that the UK Government was considering how social media data could be used both effectively and responsibly and sought written evidence on the following terms of reference

i) How can real-time analysis of social media data benefit the UK? What should the Government be doing to maximise these benefits?

ii) How does the UK compare to other EU countries in funding for real-time big data research?

iii) What are the barriers to implementing real time data analysis? Is the new Government data-capability strategy sufficient to overcome these barriers?

iv) What are the ethical concerns of using personal data and how is this data anonymised for research?

v) What impact is the upcoming EU Data Protection Legislation likely to have on access to social media data for research?

vi) Is UK legislation surrounding the collection and use of data fit for purpose?

7. We received 32 written submissions and held three evidence sessions, focusing on the benefits of social media data, the barriers to effective use of social media, questions surrounding informed consent and privacy, culminating in a final evidence session with Ed Vaizey MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. We would like to thank all contributors for their involvement in this inquiry.

1 SMD 002 [Paras 7-8]. Back

2 techUK is a trade organisation representing companies from the information technology, telecommunications and electronics sectors. Back

3 SMD 023 [Paras 1.3 & 1.6]. Back

4 The Gartner IT Glossary describes big data as "high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making". Gartner IT glossary, Big data, garner.com/ITglossary. Accessed 24 October 2014. Back

5 SMD 020 [para 3]; see also: Social Media Today, 'Social Media in 2013: By the Numbers', socialmediatoday.com and Digital Insights, 'Social Media facts, figures and statistics 2013', blog.digitalinsights.in. Both accessed 24 October 2014. Back

6 The Internet Association, Request for Comments Concerning Big Data and the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights (Docket No. 140514424-4424-01), published 5 August 2014, page 11. Back

7 SMD 020 [para 2]. Back

8 Information Commissioner's Office, Big data and data protection, July 2014, paragraph 4, page 2. Available at ico.org.uk. Accessed 24 October 2014. Back

9 The stated core aim of the ADRN is to "facilitate access to and linkage of de-identified administrative data routinely collected by government departments and other public sector organisations". See Economic and Social Research Council, 'ESRC Big Data Network - Phase 1', esrc.ac.uk. Accessed 24 October 2014. Back

10 SMD 020 [para 15] Back

11 IMPRINTS (Identity Management - Public Responses to Identity Technologies and Services) was a "was a comparative and multidisciplinary research project, asking about the influences on UK and US publics to engage and/or disengage with identity management practices, services and technologies of the future". Its final project report was published in September 2014. See imprintsfutures.org. Accessed 24 October 2014. Back

12 SMD 003 [para 3.2.2]; George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four, Published July 1950, Signet Classics Back