We’re living in a world of ‘Big Data’.
I’m not sure how it crept up on us but it’s everywhere. From our School League Tables to our NHS Trust performance, from our Jobs & the demand for the umbiquitous score sheet to Police Crime Statistics which tell us that crime is pretty much falling everywhere.(!)
Big Data is everywhere & it rules. Try to get anything done without justifying it with the data to back it up & your in for a losing battle. Listen to conversations in Management meetings & count the number of times ‘data’ is mentioned.
And of course if its in the data then it must be true – right ?
Well, there is an interesting thing about data. It’s open to interpretation. And when someone’s bonus or even livelihood is dependent on it there is always a tendency (subconciously or otherwise) to manipulate that data to portray the favoured outcome.
The only way to provide some degree of protection is to totally separate the ones producing & measuring the data from those most likely to benefit if it goes one way or the other.
We’re going to get even more data, as the Internet of Things unfolds and more and more devices are created to measure, in particular, Biometric data – so we can all measure our heartbeats, chollestrol levels, blood, pressure, heartbeat etc etc & display them on our wearable devices.
What we need to bear in mind is – what is all this data being used for ? Whom does it benefit ? and crucially, who owns it ?
