CHAPTER 8: COMPARISONS – PRIVATE SECTOR ACTIVITY
process of “emotional contagion”. The study said altering the news feeds was
“consistent with Facebook’s data use policy, to which all users agree prior to creating
a Facebook account, constituting informed consent for this research”. 35 This
generated significant media debate.
Opting out
8.89.
8.90.
Opting out of tracking can be a complicated process. For example:
(a)
In order to opt out of Facebook’s Custom Audience programme a user needs
to opt out on each of the websites of the data brokers. If Facebook partners
with a new data broker, the same process must be followed.
(b)
Apple’s Safari Browser is set to block third party cookies: yet Google was still
able to send a third party cookie which operated to allow the DoubleClick cookie
to be sent to the user’s browser for part of 2011 and 2012.36
(c)
Some users have found it very difficult to opt out of header enrichment.37
(d)
Running adware/spyware removal tools may only be partially effective.
More fundamentally, our reliance on the internet, and the near-universal use of
intrusive techniques, make it almost impossible to withhold consent to them. As it was
recently put:
“It’s not reasonable to tell people that if they don’t like the data collection, they
shouldn’t email, shop online, use Facebook or have a cell phone. I can’t
imagine students getting through school anymore without Internet search or
Wikipedia, much less finding a job afterwards. These are the tools of modern
life.”38
So one can opt out of data collection, but only by opting out of 21st century society.
Anonymisation
8.91.
Private companies are permitted to provide data to third parties without consent as
long as the data does not contain personal data, that is, information which allows an
individual to be identified. They seek to comply by providing anonymised data sets.
There are increasing concerns however about the effectiveness of anonymisation
techniques. A study of a number of these techniques in 2014 concluded that each
failed to “meet with certainty the criteria of effective anonymisation”.39
8.92.
In addition, there are concerns that Big Data techniques renders anonymisation
ineffective as a privacy tool: “Given enough data, perfect anonymisation is impossible
35
36
37
38
39
“Facebook reveals news feed experiment to control emotions”, The Guardian website, 30 June 2014.
Vidal-Hall v Google [2015] EWCA Civ 311, para 3.
“Somebody’s Already Using Verizon’s ID to Track Users”, ProPublica website, 30 October 2014.
B. Schneier, Data and Goliath, 2015, chapter 4.
Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 5/2014 on Anonymisation Techniques (April 2014).
The ICO published a Code of Practice on Anonymisation in 2012 which provides advice on good
practice.
160