Building pillar of big data will require a sound blueprint

Editor's note: At the Guiyang International Big Data Expo 2015, Guiyang officials stated in the Guiyang Declaration on Big Data that it will be focusing its economic growth strategy on the emerging industry. Here is an excerpt:

We are entering a new age of big data.

This is exciting yet worrying because waiting ahead of us are both great opportunities and challenges.

This new age is bringing us richer data resources, an endless stream of data apps, infinite space for the data industry, constant innovation in technologies and an increasingly mature big data industry.

We are also aware of the severe challenges facing network information security, with threats like hacker attacks and network viruses endangering the security of data assets, as well as not infrequent violations of personal data privacy.

Thus, guaranteeing the security of big data is of great significance.

At this year's Guiyang International Big Data Expo 2015 and Global Big Data Era Guiyang Summit, we will strive to develop better data security.

We have also analyzed global development trends in big data and discussed the major issues in big data security, protection of privacy and the development of the big data economy. Through our analyses, we have significantly deepened our understanding, clearly identified our goals and our responsibilities.

We have reached agreements on the following eight themes:

1. Big data must be shared by all.

We are becoming data protectors, enriching data resources with our actions. At the same time, we are all customers, enjoying the value created by these resources.

Data is a shared resource and will become a source of common wealth. Fully using data resources will bring us new benefits. But abusing data resources can severely harm both individuals and the public.

2.The openness of government data is a common goal.

We are calling for transparency in government data to improve governance and efficiency, better satisfy the needs of the public, facilitate social innovation and promote economic growth.

We are also calling for the establishment of platforms to make government data more transparent, to open up high-value data and encourage innovation in open data-based applications.

3. We are advocating global efforts to enhance personal data privacy and protection.

We should introduce legislation on data privacy and protection, appropriately delineate the line between information freedom and information privacy, and create a regulatory environment that allows for the healthy development of big data.

We also need to develop more techniques to enhance to protection of personal data and privacy, allow users to decide how their own data should be used and realize user-controlled privacy protections.

4. Nations are obligated to strengthen their network security networks.

We ought to establish a system to truly safeguard network security and solve information security issues concerning wireless access, data fusion, open data, data exchange and big data applications.

We should establish a comprehensive security system dealing with issues such as network communications and cloud-computing infrastructures, application systems, data, authentication and management. We need to form a next-generation system to safeguard big data security.

5. Forming global big data exchange markets is necessary for the development of this new form of economy.

We appeal for the acceleration of the development and utilization of data resources, data commoditization and commercialization as well as the establishment of big data exchange markets.

This will facilitate the forming of big data exchange markets and platforms, as well as help sort out exchange varieties, establish data pricing structures and mechanisms and set regulations regarding issues like data-exchange security.

6. Big data will become a pillar sector for global emerging industries.

We should build a data-centered industrial chain in accordance with the life cycle of data-collection and clustering, processing and organization, analysis and discovery.

We need to develop sectors such as electronics manufacturing, big data software, data centers, call centers and crowdsourcing social data analyses, as well as accelerate the construction of big data industrial clusters.

7. Technological innovation in big data plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of related industries.

We should promote innovation in key areas including data collection, storage, processing, analysis application and visualization.

We ought to build on key technological breakthroughs and continue to develop and manufacture both hardware and software for big data.

8. The application and innovative integration of big data in social and economic development will bring greater value and wealth.

We should implement the "Internet Plus" action plan and prioritize sectors dealing with massive data, such as e-commerce, industrial manufacturing, transport logistics, retail, finance, telecommunications, energy and media.

We must give our full support to the innovative integration of big data into traditional industries and realize the aggregation, integration, overlay, comparison and innovation of data of different sectors.

(China Daily 05/29/2015 page12)