Deregulating Collection: Must Privacy Give Way to Use Regulation?

Abstract

Projected benefits of data science and the paradigm of big data are incompatible with the regulation of information collection, according to the requirements of privacy. So goes a compelling and popular position that I have labelled big data exceptionalism. My article traces the debate between those who would forgo privacy in favor of use regulation and those who continue to assert the affirmative value of constraints on collection in the name of privacy. I challenge big data exceptionalism. First, it plays suspiciously well with the business model of dominant commercial incumbants, which rankles at any effort to contain their practices. More importantly, however, big data exceptionalism relies on misconceptions and ambiguities of key terms and is propped up by grossly flawed arguments and exaggerated claims of what is at stake for the public interest. Although there is no denying the many benefits of data science as well as its perplexing and unprecedented challenges to privacy, big data exceptionalism offers no guarantee of the former while it undermines a cornerstone of individual freedom and social integrity.

Keywords: big data, data science, privacy, big data exceptionalism, information law, information regulation, privacy regulation