RIOT (Rapid Information Overlay Technology) causing a Riot; Big Data going to extreme

New advancements in technology have led to a variety of privacy and security concerns from many advocacy groups and the general population. As a result, lawmakers have rolled out more complex and stringent regulatory compliance statutes and have increased enforcement efforts to deter major breaches of personal and corporate privacy.

However, in recent years, lawmakers have had a difficult time keeping up with the rapid proliferation of technology, as legislation takes much longer to pass than software takes to hit the market and evolve. For this reason, companies need to be proactive and take responsibility for information governance, data security, privacy protection and more.

More tracking software;

The Guardian recently reported that Raytheon has released a program called Riot that can search through social network data in an incredibly widespread and accurate fashion. The source explained that this has led to serious backlash from civil rights groups, while it is simply the latest software to be put in the giant stack of pending litigation proceedings.

Raytheon, one of the largest multinational defense firms in the world, developed Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology, while it has incredible capabilities and can gather tremendous volumes of personal information and translate the gathered data into actionable content. However, while the tools can empower more effective surveillance, it brings even more intense privacy concerns than Google’s recent update to its privacy policy.

According to the news provider, Riot takes the personal information and turns it into a web-diagram of sorts that illustrates the behavior of the subject, or subjects targeted by users. The concerns regarding the technology are very real.

“Social networking sites are often not transparent about what information is shared and how it is shared,”” Ginger McCall, attorney at the Electronic Information Center, told The Guardian. “”Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search.”

Protecting privacy in the Big Data era;

Big Data-based analytics tools, such as Raytheon’s Riot, are becoming more commonplace for a variety of enterprise functions, ranging from electronic litigation to marketing strategies. However, data security and privacy protection become much more complex with these technologies in play, necessitating more advanced internal information governance policies among organizations.

The Oxford Journal explained that the volume of stored data has skyrocketed as a result of other technology trends, such as mobility and business record systems. The news provider asserted that this challenges conventional wisdom and puts more pressure on processors and regulators, and that most have not been able to keep up with the trend.

Executives should consider using a vendor of document management and electronic litigation solutions, as this will often lead to more secure privacy and data in a more efficient fashion.

 Sources:

https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/10/software-tracks-social-media-defence
https://idpl.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/2/47.full