Abstract
Most Americans are in a transactional frame of mind as they consider whether to share personal information in return for a benefit or surveillance. They care about who is collecting data about them; with whom it is being shared; how it is being used; and the bargain they are being offered. Many think they have lost control of their information and that frustrates them because many believe they cannot reclaim key parts of their identities once their information has been collected. They are divided about whether the legal system is protecting them well enough and many would like to see more laws to protect them. Those who work with big data would benefit from understanding these realities and by disclosing what they are doing; alerting users and companies when they find deficiencies in personal data protection; being explicit about the insights they are gaining from their analysis and the benefits those insights yield; and pressing for legal regimes that minimize potential harms that could emerge from big data.
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Boyd (2014).
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Due to differences in the method of survey administration and questionnaire context, these findings are not directly comparable to previous Pew Research telephone surveys that have included a version of this question.
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Rainie, L. (2016). The Privacy Preferences of Americans. In: Collmann, J., Matei, S. (eds) Ethical Reasoning in Big Data. Computational Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28422-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28422-4_3
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