My Data, Your Data, Big Data

By Clarence Wardell, Ph.D., Research Analyst, CNA

I have a confession to make. I’m a digital data free rider. While I’m all for the exciting uses that companies can make of both big data and social data, and love the products and innovations that have resulted from their tapping the vast reservoir of digital data that each of us generates every day, I tend to prefer that it is your data, and not mine.

When Google Chrome or Microsoft Word crashes, and I’m prompted to send an error report to the company, I often decline. I like the idea of real-time traffic updates on my iPhone, but would prefer if Apple were not tracking my whereabouts back in Cupertino, even if I am “anonymized.” Seeing the songs my friends are listening to on Spotify when I’m on Facebook is great, but I’m not all that eager to share the fact that I listened to “Call Me Maybe” four times during my lunch break.

I do, of course, want Chrome and Word to run better, and I appreciate knowing how to get around a traffic jam before jumping on the freeway and getting stuck in a ten-mile back up. It’s just that, I’d rather these improvements and innovations be generated by your data and not mine.

I suspect that my selfishness is not unique, and it illustrates the personal, and societal, dichotomy of people happily extracting value from shared-data technologies yet begrudging the use of their personal data; evermore enamored with the possibilities for innovation and problem-solving that big-data offer but increasingly skeptical of how others are using our information.

Granted, I may think about this more than most. As someone who does research at the intersection of social media and disaster response, I’ve become very aware of the tension created by this dichotomy. While excited about the prospect of using data generated from new media platforms to improve response operations in places like Haiti, I’m also sensitive to the privacy concerns that cause many to hesitate in either sharing or using that data.

Opportunities abound for new media and big data to be used to fuel innovations for the public good. Over the past two years there has been an acceleration of interest from some of the world’s most important institutions in using the digital data generated from new media platforms to solve important problems. The UN Global Pulse initiative is working to leverage digital data to improve international development interventions, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently concluded a challenge competition to develop a web-based application to track Twitter data and identify “trending” illnesses, and the Obama administration announced in March that it would invest $200 million in big-data research and development in the hope of “using big-data approaches to make progress on key national challenges.” Still, individuals’ concerns about the types of data being collected and how they are used—even when freely given—are legitimate and need to be addressed.

In their January opinion in the case United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court justices raised important questions about privacy and data collection in the information age. However, because the Department of Justice U.S. has been hesitant to appeal related losses at the lower courts, the Supreme Court has not had the opportunity to establish guidance for data collection. The Obama administration’s blueprint for a “Privacy Bill of Rights,” is a step in the right direction, but the $200 million R&D investment further signals the need for legislation to be passed by the U.S. Congress to define clear boundaries for online privacy and data collection. Then, maybe people like me will share a little more. After all, it will take a lot of little data to reap the anticipated benefits of big data.