Big Data: Legal Challenges (Full Report)
The form in which data is stored, the human skill and attention which goes into its collection and arrangement, the way in which data is protected, the need to preserve or destroy data at given intervals, the control, location and ownership of data and the sensitivity of data from a commercial and privacy perspective all require an increasingly close interaction between lawyers and the CIO or Chief Information Officer of corporations.
A well-defined data strategy is necessary to ensure proper treatment of this all important "new asset class".
Unstructured data poses particular challenges to traditional legal principles. Copyright has typically been the focus of protection of databases, but unstructured data in particular is not typically the province of the copyright lawyer, given the emphasis in copyright law on expression rather than ideas.
Many questions arise as to legal protection for unstructured data, given much of it may have no useful meaning at all before the data analyst weaves his or her magic. Is such data protected as confidential? Can such collections of information be licensed? These questions are analysed in this paper. In the following section we focus on key areas of law most likely to arise in relation to databases and consider the extent to which they accommodate the realities of Big Data.
Related links
- The data explosion
- Defining big data
- Can a database be protected by copyright?
- A special case: The European database directive
- Does the law recognise the 'confidential information' contained in a database?
- Can use of a database be protected via a contract or license?
- Big data as a Privacy Concern
- Conclus·ons
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.