The Internet Technology and Data Ownership Issue - Assignment Example

? of of Discipline] The Internet Technology and Data Ownership Issue DQ1-Changing society   Select a technology, such as electricity, the internal combustion engine, television, the telephone, etc., and describe how the invention and widespread adoption of this technology changed society. Who benefited or lost out due to the adoption of the technology? THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE INTERNET. It was only a few decades ago that the world was unaware of the terminology ‘Internet’. Today, there is virtually no literate human household that may be devoid of this facility. The internet has become such a norm that the mere existence of man at a certain place without having been connected to the internet is though impossible. About (2011) defines the internet as: “The term Internet today refers to the global network of public computers running Internet Protocol. The Internet supports the public WWW and many special-purpose client/server software systems. Internet technology also supports many private corporate intranets and private home LANs.” (about, 2011) The human society has been transformed completely with the advent of the internet. Human life before it was devoid of the thought of staying virtually connected to innumerable individuals just by getting connected to a network w=of computers that was nothing more than an obscure network of corporate computers just about a quarter of a century back. Though it started off merely as a very small scale office network today the internet is the biggest network of connected computing devices from all over the world that has ever existed. This network is a massive den of information. This information may be related to just about anything and everything. It is an open network and the more users get connected to it via their connecting device the wider it becomes. The connecting devices may either be as small as a mobile phone and may even be as large as a super server computer. Any user can add just about any kind of information over the internet. Only information gathered from reliable resources is authentic and may be referred to others further on. Isao Hiroki mentions internet in his paper in the following words: “The virtual space of the internet permeates our daily lives and countless new services.” (Hiroki, 2003) For all students and inquisitive learners the internet is an ideal resource. This is because they can find out information regarding just about any of their topics from the internet. All they need to do id to search for the required topic by entering its’ prominent words in efficient search engines. These search engines dig throughout authentic (spyware free) web pages and bring out their links as a result. The user can then make use of the massive data retrieval that is at his disposal with the additive advantage of it being free of cost. Evan Charles Sveum (July 2010) mentions Computing and Internet Technology in the following words: “Computing and Internet technologies (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000) have changed the nature of work and occupations that would allow a person to earn a living.” (Sveum, 2010) The above statement narrates the fact that internet based jobs have been very popular among the public since internet technology has emerged. Besides that the availability of other jobs can also be checked via the internet as many vendors propagate the availability of jobs at their sites via it. Many people can now earn a living by earning over the internet in the form of e-business, writing blogs etc. DQ2-Who owns the data? Privacy and/or security issues are inherent in large databases. Who owns the data about a particular person: medical, credit, personal, financial, consumer information, etc.? Support your position. The question referring to the ownership of data has been existent ever since the launch of databases. The dependence of man on computing machines for transactions related to monetary and personal details cannot be overlooked in this fast paced world of e-commerce. Even if one does not get indulged into an electronic business transaction he still has to get his personal details recoded into computer system database records at one point or the other. May it be the records kept at the governmental levels for identification purposes or those being maintained at your physician’s clinic that keeps a record of your health related information in order to maintain history, database system interactions of an individual are inevitable. The issue that arises once personal details are being recorded at external data centers is that since the data is longer in the supervision/control of the individual himself, then who would be considered the owner of it? The person about whom the data is? Even though he no longer has any control over its use, or is it now owned by the external database owners in which it is stored? These external data keepers cannot be stopped from misusing the personal information as it is completely at their disposal. Elad Harison (2010) mentions in his paper that a few years ago the data collected within databases was considered as public domain, however, the commercialization of these databases has resulted in the emergence of ownership rights and legal issues. Charles Safran et al (2006) and others have researched and evaluated methods that should be incorporated in order to ensure that the data integrity of every respective individual is maintained and data is secured. According to statements from their paper, “The nation requires a framework for the secondary use of health data with a robust infrastructure of policies, standards, and best practices. Such a framework can guide and facilitate widespread collection, storage, aggregation, linkage, and transmission of health data. The framework will provide appropriate protections for legitimate secondary use.” (Safran, et al, 2006 ) Referring to the need for the establishment of a system of policies that would safeguard the sanctity of every individual’s personal as well as corporate information it is proposed that data laws be formulated and promulgated upon every data storage area and data managing systems. The present day status of the ownership of data is that almost all institutions have data laws of their own. They have made rules and policies that assert the ownership records of data that may be related to personal or research related information. Institutional officials are restricted from manipulating data or copying information from it. Every transaction with data that they undertake is recorded with their identity and timeline. The data manipulations that they perform are tracked and recorded and can always be looked back in data logs. This way any official that has access to the data bank is restricted from manipulating it owing to the surveillance of the data management system. REFERENCES: About. 2011. Internet. About.com. Accessed on 22 October, 2011. Available at Accessed on 22 October, 2011. Harisson, Elad. March 2010. ‘Who owns enterprise information? Data Ownership rights in Europe and the US.’ Information and Management. 47.1 (102-108). Accessed on 22 October, 2011. Available at < http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/eds/detail?sid=0239c633-9a57-4556-bb6b-f1b8ee1bf162%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=4&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=48403067> From EBSCO Host. Hiroki, I. August 2003. The spread of Information Technology and Change I Society. Institute for International Policy Studies. Accessed on 22 October, 2011. Available at < http://www.iips.org/Viewpoint_Hiroki.pdf> Safran, C. et al. 2006. Toward a National Framework for the Secondary Use of Health Data: An American Medical Informatics Association White Paper. Perspectives on Informatics. 14.1, Accessed on 22 October, 2011. Available at < http://jamia.bmj.com/content/14/1/1.short> Sveum, E. July 2010. A Comparative Study of the University of Wisconsin-Stout Freshman and Senior Education Major’s computing and internet Technology Skills and Associated Learning Experiences. University of Wisconsin. Accessed on 22 October, 2011. Available at Read More