Academia's Facial Recognition Datasets Illustrate The Globalization Of Today's Data

This week's furor over FaceApp has largely centered on concerns that its Russian developers might be compelled to share the app's data with the Russian government, much as the Snowden disclosures illustrated the myriad ways in which American companies were compelled to disclose their private user data to the US government. Yet the reality is that this represents a mistaken understanding of just how the modern data trade works today and the simple fact that American universities and companies routinely make their data available to companies all across the world, including in Russia and China. In today's globalized world, data is just as globalized, with national borders no longer restricting the flow of our personal information - trend made worse by the data-hungry world of deep learning. Data brokers have long bought and sold our personal data in a shadowy world of international trade involving our most intimate and private information. The digital era has upended this explicit trade through the interlocking world of passive exchange through analytics services.