The Digital Aggregated Self: A Literature Review

As the Internet rapidly establishes itself as a major communications conduit, growing concern exists about personal privacy issues and the related ownership of personal data. Privacy and personal data may be vulnerable to exposure by unauthorized individuals, by commercial entities wishing to profit from the data, and even by the individual to whom the data pertains. Although fragments of data may not present a privacy issue on their own, data mining and other aggregation methods quickly assemble data to create a considerably more sensitive "whole. " This article presents an examination of aggregated personal data ownership, or "the digital aggregated self, " using a literature review and an ethical argument. We propose that while server owners may possess the disaggregated user data stored on their servers, individuals should hold the rights to their set of aggregated data that is stored throughout the entire network of online servers.