Trust: The most important business currency

The SMU School of Information Systems (SIS) held a panel discussion titled “Protection of Personal Data in the Age of Big Data” at the SMU on February 10. The free public event featured a talk by Mr Adam Tanner, a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and a panel of distinguished speakers representing business, individual and government perspectives on big data and its usage. SIS Dean and Vice Provost (Research) Professor Steven Miller said, “We live in a quizzical time where people are worried about the privacy of their personal data and yet expect that companies should know about them from prior transactions.” He added, “This expectation rests on the assumption that the personal information known by companies will be handled in a trusted way, making trust the crux of the issue.”