Who's profiting from your personal information?

​Privacy and the protection of our personal data online are the subjects of fierce debate in numerous forums around the world, and a core focus of the IFLA Trend Report.

As data sets held by governments and companies support the advanced profiling of individuals, sophisticated methods of monitoring and filtering communications data will make tracking those individuals cheaper and easier. Combined with the economic value of this personal data and pervasiveness of our digital footprint, these developments have serious consequences for individual privacy and trust in the online world.

Libraries are pondering the implications of e-lending as well as mobile and wearable technology in libraries on privacy and the protection of their users' data. Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide: Insights from the IFLA Trend Report considers a future that includes Google Glass, educational profiling, citizen surveillance by even those governments considered democratic.

Last page update: 13 August 2013