Analysts react strongly to news that Oracle has a ‘surveillance machine’

The case of a software giant selling personal data to third parties is troubling, said Iris Akwetey, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research, today.

Akwetey responded to news of a class action lawsuit filed against Oracle Corp. last Friday, saying the company has detailed personal information about the buying habits of an estimated 5 billion consumers.

“Oracle mostly acts as a data processor for other companies or most companies (data controllers),” she said. “[It]may be in breach of part of the contract and abuses our responsibility as a data processor not to share or sell personal data to third parties without the knowledge of the data controller or the consent of the data subject.” It may even be.”

According to Akwetey, the regulation requires that “data must not be stored indefinitely. Additionally, organizations should delete data as soon as it has served its purpose.

“Oracle must be aware of these practices and the consequences of their violations. In today’s era of technological advancement, selling the personal data of billions of people is careless and unacceptable, and regulators It is highly likely that this will be used as a scapegoat.

The company’s founder and chairman, Larry Ellison, candidly admitted in a keynote address in San Francisco six years ago that the company tracks the buying habits of billions of consumers.

Speaking at Oracle OpenWorld 2016, he said: And here, seeing all of their social activity in real time is really combined with seeing locations, including microlocations, in real time. ”

Ellison said this “scares the lawyers. They’re shaking their heads and covering their eyes with their hands.”

He went on to say that when Oracle “gathers information about consumers and combines it with their demographic profiles and past purchasing behavior, they can do a pretty good job of predicting what they will buy next.” said.

“Now, where does this demographic data come from? Where does this past purchase come from? Well, Oracle Data Cloud is the largest database. I have two large databases that hold a lot of information about .

“One is very famous, it’s called Facebook. They have great data, don’t get me wrong, Facebook has incredible data assets, and so do we.”

“And with our data cloud, marketers can target consumers and more accurately predict what they will buy next. We think it’s in our ID graph – 5 billion people.How many people are there on the planet?7 billion, only 2 billion more.

The Irish Civil Liberties Council (ICCL), based in Dublin, said in a statement Monday that the organization’s Senior Fellow Dr. is one of the California area last Friday.

Others include US-based privacy rights activist Michael Katz-Lacabe and court papers on Social Networks, Social Media, Privacy, and Security on the Web.

“Oracle is a vital part of the tracking and data industry,” the statement said. “It claims to collect detailed documents of 5 billion people and generate an annual revenue of US$42.4 billion.

“Oracle documents about people include names, home addresses, emails, online and real-world purchases, real-world physical movements, income, interests, political views, and detailed descriptions of online activities. included.”

“We are taking this step to stop Oracle’s surveillance machine,” Ryan added.

According to Akwetey, the EU’s GDPR, along with other privacy regulations around the world, such as California’s CPRA, will allow data subjects to control how their data is used and which third parties, nationally or internationally. to have access to your personal information.

“Most regulations also require consent if the purpose of the collected data changes. Both data controllers and data processors (through contracts) must comply with these requirements.

“Data processors and data controllers also need to know what data they have, whether that data is relevant to the purposes for which it was collected, and where that data is stored. , almost all regulations require organizations that collect data to anticipate data uses to avoid excessive data collection.”