The Edward Snowden saga has dragged the issue of privacy into the limelight, and shed new light on the importance of individual freedom. Curt Monash, a well known industry analyst, shared his take on this topic in an interview on theCube at the recently concluded HP Vertica Big Data Conference.

“Privacy is hugely important,” Monash said, because it is among the principal values that have to be upheld in every society. He highlighted that the implications of privacy abuse can be “extremely dangerous”  because users’ physical location, transaction history and license plates are all tracked in today’s increasingly connected world. Monash believes that the main issue is not preventing organizations from accessing information, but rather making sure that they won’t leverage user data to cause harm.

“We need to prevent abuses and we need to prevent them so well so that it doesn’t have a chilling effect on exercising ordinary freedom,” Monash explained. “One should not avoid going rock climbing for fear of being labeled as a risk taker, and therefore not being hired by a conservative organization. One should not be forced to pay cash instead of credit card to hide the recreational rock climbing. As an industry, we have to show leadership and educate lawmakers and regulators.”

Monash and SiliconANGLE both view privacy, and by extension security, as central pain points for both consumers and organizations. SiliconANGLE founding CEO John Furrier highlighted in a panel discussion that the proliferation of Big Data is making security an increasingly important priority for enterprises across all segments. Hewlett Packard will have to double down on this trend in order to establish a foothold in the Big Data market.

Zettaset, a provider of  management and orchestration solutions for Hadoop,  is working toward the same goal as HP. The company made its software compliant with the PCI Data Security Standards to help enterprises minimize the risk of fraud and theft.