Give the White House credit. It
is trying to keep an important issue before the eyes of the public. OK, this
one does not deal with Benghazi or Obamacare. But in the long term, it will
probably be even more important. The topic is big data.
The White House issued two
well-thought out reports last week, one on the ethical ramifications and
another on the technical aspects of big data
in our lives. The topic did not gather a lot of press coverage,
probably because it is not as sexy as other issues. In addition, it did not
draw a lot of attention. It is one of those issues that simmers, rather than
boils.
Big data is the gathering of
massive amounts of information from all kinds of
sources, from bridge crossings to online purchases to Internet searches
to tweets and phone calls to bank records. You name it. With the new power of
computers, all of those data points can be quickly analyzed and directed to
detect patterns. The problem is that some of these patterns tell too much about
our personal lives and leave us open to exploitation.
The analysts may be the National
Security Agency or your friendly broadband company. It can even be that ice
cream store down the street. The records of how many raspberry ice cream cones
you bought or which movies you watched on cable are being recorded and
analyzed. The NSA wants to predict the likelihood of terrorists living next
store. The grocery store wants to predict what soda you will buy and what it
will take to make you buy more.
The White House reports were
based on a series of conferences with experts from various fields. The experts
lauded the potential for good that big data can bring us, but they also warned
of dangers.
Among the positives that big data
can bring us: Medicare and Medicaid searching records and decoding fraud. That
has the potential of saving taxpayers millions of dollars. Locally, the New
Castle County police department uses big data analysis to track reported
crimes, from the most dangerous to the trivial. The patterns that emerge can
help direct the location of officers and thus lead to a decrease in crime. Many
cities around the country use big data analysis to track and predict locations
of violent crime. Wilmington should take note.
On the other hand, government
agencies like the NSA know our comings and goings, who we talked to on the
phone and what messages we sent online. Delaware police agencies, like those
across the nation, have large libraries of digital photos of car license plates
as the cars moved intersections. Storage of those images can be harnessed to
powerful computer programs to detect and track the movement of cars. We would
be foolish if we believe that there will never be a breach of trust in guarding
that information.
The White House's experts echoed
that warning.
Big data will be both a blessing
and a curse in the years to come. How we respond to warnings, like those from
the White House, will determine which comes out on top.
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