從資料所有權檢視電信資料變現應用與消費者個資保護之權衡

Examining Telecom Data Monetization Applications and Consumer Data Protection Issues from the Perspective of Data Ownership

In recent years, telecommunication companies in many countries have been actively working on using consumers’big data in value-added applications of telecommunications data, including four major areas: customer experience management, network optimization, operational analytics, and data monetization. Although telecommunications companies in Taiwan have begun to apply consumers’big data to the value-added applications of telecom data, they have hesitated due to the government’s unclear interpretation of the“de-identification”requirement stipulated in the Personal Data Protection Law, which has caused related value-added applications to stagnate. This study takes telecommunications services as an example to discuss the balance between the telecom data monetization applications and consumers’personal data protection. It interviews the heads of the legal and information departments of major domestic telecommunication companies and uses online survey to explore consumers’concerns about the protection of their personal data when using telecommunication services. In addition, this paper also uses a focus group approach to invite telecom industry, government, and experts to discuss how to balance the value-added applications of telecommunications data and consumer personal data protection, and proposes the solutions to deal with the dilemma of the Personal Data Protection Law and regulations faced by Taiwan telecommunications companies when considering the value-added application of consumer data. The results of the study show that consumers have significantly lower trust in the information provided by telecom operators using big data, while telecom operators believe that the Personal Data Protection Law is not clear enough about the specification of de-identification. Only when the competent authority assists the industry to establish a clear verification standard, and the industry continues to strengthen the protection of consumers’personal information and deidentifies it, the industry’s expectation of data monetization can be realized.