The Big Data and Privacy Working Group has issued its first report: Findings of the Big Data and Privacy Working Group Review.
John Podesta writes:
Over the past several days, severe storms have battered Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and other states. Dozens of people have been killed and entire neighborhoods turned to rubble and debris as tornadoes have touched down across the region. Natural disasters like these present a host of challenges for first responders. How many people are affected, injured, or dead? Where can they find food, shelter, and medical attention? What critical infrastructure might have been damaged?
Drawing on open government data sources, including Census demographics and NOAA weather data, along with their own demographic databases, Esri, a geospatial technology company, has created a real-time map showing where the twisters have been spotted and how the storm systems are moving. They have also used these data to show how many people live in the affected area, and summarize potential impacts from the storms. It’s a powerful tool for emergency services and communities. And it’s driven by big data technology.
In January, President Obama asked me to lead a wide-ranging review of “big data” and privacy—to explore how these technologies are changing our economy, our government, and our society, and to consider their implications for our personal privacy. Together with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the President’s Science Advisor John Holdren, the President’s Economic Advisor Jeff Zients, and other senior officials, our review sought to understand what is genuinely new and different about big data and to consider how best to encourage the potential of these technologies while minimizing risks to privacy and core American values.
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The full text of the Big Data Report.
The executive summary seems to shift between “big data” and “not big data.” Maps of where twisters hit recently are hardly the province of “big data.” Every local news program produces similar maps. Even summarizing potential damage isn’t a “big” data issue. Both are data issues but that isn’t the same thing as “big data.”
If we are not careful, “big data” with very soon equal “data” and a useful distinction will have been lost.
Read the report over the weekend and post comments if you see other issues that merit mention.
Thanks!
It opens with the goal of:
“conduct a 90 day study to examine how big data will transform the way we live and work and alter the relationships between government, citizens, businesses, and consumers.”
and then never mentions the NSA and it’s myriad of programs that intertwine the relationships among all the listed groups. It has only this disclaimer to justify side-stepping the issue:
“This report largely leaves issues raised by the use of big data in signals
intelligence to be addressed through the policy guidance that the President announced in January.”
That is a far as I got. IMO, the conclusions of any government “study” of big data that ignores the single most important case study of the issues raised by big-data are suspect at best, propaganda at worst.
Comment by clemp — May 3, 2014 @ 7:58 am