General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It seems to be gaining momentum as a framework for personal data protection. Various governments have been releasing data protection Acts of their own lately too. At the moment the focus appears to be on data privacy within public bodies, but big business is sure to be required to meet similar demands too.

It hadn’t really dawned on me just how important data privacy was in the world of OSS until a few things clicked into place.

Having worked with data, I’ve worked within privacy frameworks defined by customers and undertaken compulsory training courses on their policies, so I certainly have an awareness of privacy.

Knowing the expanses of data lakes and their ability to connect data dots together means I had an awareness that if you aggregate enough seemingly insensitive data points, you can start getting a more personal viewpoint than policies had allowed. This article from Carl Piva and Sarah Wray of TM Forum compares this aggregation to junk bonds – when you bundle too many bonds with varying risk profiles together, eventually you might not know ‘what’s in the box’.

Keep reading on Passionate About OSS.