Big Data and YouThe How & Where. The Advantages & Dangers. The Questions…

Let’s Take A Look• Big Data: What is it?

• How big is Big Data?

• How and where is it collected?

• Where is it stored and is it stored safely?

• Your Permission to collect your data

• Advantages for businesses and our daily lives

• Possible dangers and risks associated with big data

• What can you do?

• Contemplation and questions

Big Data: What Is It?

Wikipedia Definition

• Big data is the term for a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications.

It’s Bigger Than Ever• Traditionally, data was structured and neatly organised in databases

• Post-internet, a proliferation of ‘unstructured data’ is generated by everything we do online

• Globally, the number of gadgets that can record and transmit data –smartphones, smart fridges, CCTV cameras and digital sensors- has exploded and along with it, the volume of data produced

• 90% of all the data in the world today has been created in the past few years

• 2.5 exabytes - 2.5 billion GB - of data was created every day in 2012 (IBM)

• We now need new tools and approaches to understand and use these huge and complex data sets

Big Data: How & Where Is It Collected?

Collection: Social Media• Average global internet user spends 2.5 hours on social

media every day

• We reveal a lot about our interests, dislikes, relationships, travel and careers

• We get more personalized content and targeted advertising

• Facebook’s ‘Like button’ is clicked 2.7 billion times a day (BI)

• 22% of LinkedIn users have between 500-999 first-degree connections (BI)

• Twitter processes approximately 143,199 tweets per second worldwide (BI)

• Millions of product images are pinned to boards on Pinterest every day

Collection: Consumer Data• Credit card use and retail transactions = every

time you swipe a card

• Loyalty cards

• Acxiom’s servers process more than 50 trillion data transactions per year and their database contains info on 500 million consumers worldwide – 1,500 data points per person

• Sending an email (Gmail’s email scanning for targeted marketing)

• Going on vacation

• Completing a survey

• Google, Yahoo and Bing (search engines)

Collection: ‘Quantified Self’ apps

• Nike+ Fuel Band

• Fitbit

• Jawbone’s UP band

• Weight and body measurements

• Heart rate, blood pressure and glucose levels

• Location, duration and speed of exercise activity

Where Is It Stored? The Cloud.

• In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer's hard drive. (PC Mag)

Did Anyone Ask You?• In Rio de Janeiro, IBM and the Brazilian government have teamed

up to create a central surveillance hub for the 2014 World Cup

• On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Gmail, etc, you probably clicked, ‘Agree’, for the terms and conditions without reading them entirely

• In Boston, citizens have complained about their privacy over the use of licence plate recognition software

• In Greece, the government uses Google Earth to search for undocumented swimming pools and then matches that against tax records to find tax offenders. They have found 16, 974.

• The NY Times has reported that retail stores gather data of in-store shoppers’ behaviour and moods, their gender and how long they spend looking at products before buying

Big Data: What Advantages Are There?

Corporate Advantage• 400 large companies that are already using

big data analytics “have gained a significant lead over the rest of the corporate world” (Bain & Co report)

• Anyone who uses big data analytics can make their manufacturing and production processes more efficient (BBC News)

• Find hidden business trends

• Create better marketing campaigns

• Capture financial risk

• Analyse consumer buying behaviour

• Improve customer service

Employment – Data Scientist• = A high-ranking professional with the training and curiosity to

make discoveries in the world of big data and then communicate them effectively to the business and IT leaders so that the business can use those findings to solve business challenges (BBC/IBM)

• 5 to 10 years ago, the job of a Data Scientist never existed and currently there is a shortage of them

• Average Salary? $110, 000 USD (FastCompany)

• 4.4 million big data jobs by 2015 (McKinsey)

Weather Prediction and Services• Satellites monitor global rainfall,

helping meteorologists use big data analytics to predict storms around the world

• The Weather Company collects 20 terabytes of data daily, serving hundreds of thousands of customers: 30 airlines, emergency services, shippers, utilities, insurers and developers of many mobile weather apps

• Farmers who analyse weather, soil, topography and GPS tractor data can increase their crop yields

Healthcare• Predict which heart attack patients are

at risk of having a second heart attack

• ‘Magic Carpet’ patient monitoring for seniors

• Stop the flu from spreading with apps like FluNearYou

• Drug Information Systems (DIS) helping doctors, pharmacies and hospitals track which medications are dispensed and used therefore reducing drug interactions

• Use of electronic information –patient records, prescriptions, imaging, test results –reduces the number of patient visits to doctors, clinics, and hospitals

…and More…• Understand traffic patterns via GPS data to improve taxi service,

public transportation, parking availability, traffic flow and fuel conservation

• Self-driving cars

• Home energy monitoring with appliances and utilities for more energy conversation awareness and solutions

• Analyse sports and players to make predictions and increase winning

• Improve political campaigns

• Crime fighting and capturing criminals

Big Data: What Dangers Are There?

High School and Your Unshakable Past• Data is being collected on students to improve teaching methods,

test scores and to decrease drop-out rates

• What if this data collected never disappears and stays on a your academic record permanently only to be retrieved by prospective employers?

• Academically tracking students can limit their opportunities in life when the data suggest an educational track to pursue

• Australia’s largest telecomm: more than 25% of Australian bosses screened job candidates based on their social media profiles

Ethics, Risks, Unknowns…• Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, promotes risk-taking as one of

his company’s core values but when they make mistakes, society bears the cost(s)

• There is potential danger from inappropriate disclosure of information and data

• More than ever before, individuals and groups can be profiled and therefore manipulated

• Access to data could be restricted to those in power or to those able to pay

• An election could be significantly influenced: voters are shown certain messages and not others based on data found in their emails, texts and social media posts

• Who controls the data and tools and where is the legislation and community engagement?

The NSA ‘Bumblehive’

• The US National Security Agency’s huge data centre in Utah can store a yottabyte of data = one thousand trillion GB

Oh Yes, The NSA• Secrecy prevented checks and balances on

its activity and therefore it has ignored the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of people

• The NSA collects up to 5 billion cell-phone location records per day, worldwide without a warrant or court order (the Post)

• The NSA’s Co-Traveler analytics tool for cellphone location data can make you suspicious because of where you have been AND whom you have been near

• The NSA has been recording ALL of one foreign country’s phone calls, then listening to those conversations up to a month later (the Post)

Big Data: What Can You Do?

Not Into Being Tracked?• Pay only in cash

• Give up your loyalty cards

• Stop using coupons

• Abandon social media

• Write letters instead of emails

• Stop using text messages to communicate

• Don’t make any phone calls

• Stay in one location or turn off your GPS

• Shop in stores and not online (oh wait, stores monitor you, too…)

• Don’t use Skype to call home or friends

But, I’m Not Doing Anything Wrong!

• Is your definition of ‘wrong’ the same as the government’s?

Now That You’re Scared, Let’s Review!• Big Data: What is it? = too large, too complex

• How big is Big Data? = 2.5 billion GB of data was created daily in 2012 (IBM)

• How and where is it collected? = social media, consumer data, ‘Quanifiable Self’

• Where is it stored and is it stored safely? = the Cloud (Where’s that?!)

• Your Permission to collect your data = Have you been asked?

• Advantages for businesses and our daily lives = corporate, data scientist, healthcare, weather, crime

• Possible dangers and risks associated with big data = high school, employability, NSA, elections

• What can you do? = Live in a log cabin in the forest

Big Data Questions: Mine & Yours

You’re Supplying the Data• How do you feel about so many data points being collected about

you?

• How do you know that your data is being stored in a safe, protected place?

• What types of data don’t you want to share?

• Why don’t you read the Terms and Agreements before you click, ‘Agree’?

Thank You! Questions?

Jamie Good’s Data: – Twitter: @JGoodTO

– Website: goodjamie.com