“We are the ones who create tomorrow, we’ve just been doing it unintentionally.” -Vida Williams
For my MCSM 2400 class, Professor Chambers had us watch a TED Talk by Vida Williams where she goes into detail about citizen data. When the video started, she was wearing a shirt that read “#CitizenData,” with the intent to highlight the matter. Throughout the video, Vida Williams brings awareness to citizen data, and I got to learn the importance of citizen data. At the start of the video, she mentions how when people hear the term “infinite entity,” they think of something “God-like.” However, she considers all people born to be infinite entities, because life is infinite.
Approximately 360,000 people are born everyday, with approximately 10,000 of those new lives born in the United States. In Vida Williams’ profession, she’s able to view all types of private data that you don’t even think about. Some of this data includes, but is not limited to, your SSN, blood type, calorie intake, etc. The way she describes it, she’s “spent 20 years watching people live, breathe, and grow in data.” Basically, what she’s trying to raise awareness to, is the fact that there are people who are in positions similar to Vida’s, that are able to view our personal data. But more importantly, important decisions can be made based off of the data that we are unknowingly submitting to be viewed.
An example that Vida Williams used during the TED Talk was how Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, recently bought out Whole Foods. Now, the organic food market is currently worth 39.7 billion dollars as a result of us spending more money on food in this generation than ever before. In that, the most influential set of votes come from millennials, making up 52% of the votes in the organic food industry. Now the main reason why is because of convenience, but, by spending a certain amount of money for convenient food, that is “voting” against a local farmer, which is against Vida Williams’ values. That’s a simple example of how you can unintentionally vote against something you’re for, because somebody is tracking your data and then the focus shifts.
According to Vida Williams, we as citizens have 3 responsibilities when it comes to our citizen data. The first responsibility is that “you have the responsibility to understand your data.” The second responsibility is that “we do have the responsibility to understand our data,” and the third is that “we do have the responsibility to share our data. So in conclusion, we can’t control that our data is looked at, but we can control what we’re putting out there and it’s important that the things that you’re putting out represent the things that you want, because there’s somebody looking at this data making important decisions that affect you based on your data.
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