“There need to be accountability processes that are [attached to] the data,” he said.
Professor Ryan Ko, chairman and director of cyber security at the University of Queensland, said technology and service providers that added such a layer of metadata to the data they provided would gain a competitive advantage as the population became increasingly sceptical of data on the internet.
The ever-improving ability to doctor images or to use machine learning to make “deep fake” videos that were difficult or impossible to distinguish from genuine videos, for example, was creating an opportunity for service providers to appear in the next five to 10 years and supply images and videos that were certified as having come direct from a camera without modification.
“We are starting to see the authenticity of data being treasured and more valued.
“The platforms that can offer the attestation and verification of truth of data will have a competitive advantage over other businesses,” Professor Ko said.
Not only did data need to be verifiable, it also needed to be quickly removable from services.
“We are starting to see people moving towards platforms which offer people control of their data. If I were an enterprising entrepreneur right, I’d be thinking about what kind of data control techniques and solutions I could offer,” he said.
“Perhaps I’d even give my users a cyber kill switch that lets them turn off access to data that they own.”
