The document discusses the rise of big data and issues surrounding its collection and use. It provides examples of how much personal data is collected from sources like smartphones, social media, smart home devices and more. It also discusses challenges regarding privacy, security of data, how data is used by companies and potential issues that could arise from new technologies like artificial intelligence.

1. Big Data
Salesand the ethics of

2. 2013: the year of Big Data
►Bradley Manning came to trial having
made public “what the US ambassador
really thought”
● Problem 1: concentration of risk
● Problem 2: over-widespread access*
►Edward Snowden revealed PRISM
● Industrial scale data interception
● Spooks trying to keep us safe by reading
al-Qaeda’s email and probably others’
* Not all have access to everything but “Almost 5 million people have a U.S. security clearance;
About 1.4 million of those lay claim to "top-secret" clearance.” USA Today 10 June 2013

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What is
Big Data?

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Definitions vary, but
► Most search engines don’t just search, they remember your
searches.
► e-commerce sites don’t just remember what you ordered, but
they watch how long you spend on the site, when you return
and more.
► Insurers are beginning to use Big Data; they decide whether
to insure you or not, not just on the basis of your proposal
form, but on what else they can find out about you.
► Job interviewers probably research candidates’ social media
footprint (NB this can be viewed as discriminatory).
► Weather forecasts will soon improve by using “OpenSignals”
atmospheric pressure data from our mobile phones.

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The potential for
acquiring even
bigger data is
immense.

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Data used to look like this
about 12 bytes/inch

7. Now they’re stored on these
1TB stored on paper tape would
stretch to the moon and back
almost three times

8. The cost of storage is now so cheap,
3p buys enough capacity to store
where someone has been and who
they have called for a year, probably
for a decade or more.
In December 2013 disk storage cost under 3 pence/GByte on eBay.

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It’s intimate
Many of us freely share details:
► Almost all the people we know.
► Who we speak to, when, and where we were at the time.
► Who emails us.
► How fast we accelerate when we drive our cars.
► What route we took to work.
► What temperature we keep our houses and offices.
► Which direction we’re facing.
► … where and when we spend cash.
We give this information away!

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You probably guessed the source!
► It combines your contacts from LinkedIn, Outlook and other sources
in a useful or spooky manner … depending on your perspective
► The most recent Galaxy S4 has the following
● Accelerometer
● Geomagnetic compass
● Geographic Positioning System
● Gyroscope
● Proximity sensor
● Barometer
● Hygrometer
● Ambient thermometer
● Light meter
● The S4 even knows when you are looking at it!
► Many of the apps we use on our smart phones
require us to grant access to much of this data.

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Pervasive and persistent
“25% of smartphone owners
aged 18-44 say they can’t recall
the last time their smartphone
wasn’t next to them”
IDC and Facebook 2013

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More data from “the Internet of Things”
All sorts of things can now be connected to the internet: fridges,
vacuum cleaners, central heating systems, burglar alarms, lighting, hi-fi,
cars and more.
Some cars will already call the emergency services if you crash. Soon
your car will contact your PA (a computer) to tell it that it needs
servicing. Your PA will check for a day you’re working from home and
book the car in for a service. The car will already have told the garage
which parts need replacing.
By 2020 expect to hear someone in the pub on whatever comes after
Facebook tell of their woes on the day their house crashed!
Coming next the human genome: your unique 3GB code is available for
under $6,000 down from $95m in 2001!

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Even big business has been rattled by governmental
activity… perhaps because some of their businesses
depend on acquiring large volumes of data?

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With all this data, how far have we
got in our quest for wisdom?

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This is what is available
through analysing
search histories using
Google Trends:

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Some things are predictable

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December peak for champagne

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Interest in royalty
Press
report
Kate and
Wills split
Royal
Wedding
Birth of
Prince
George

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Saturday is Pizza night in the UK

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Taxes loom in January

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The economy

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But this peak is swine ‘flu

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Is validation the
only problem
with our use of
Big Data?

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Sadly not,
let’s look at an
advertisers’
use of Big Data.

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How not to nurture a sale
►I visited a well known web retailer to find a
casual blue shirt.
►I found one, but I wasn’t quite sure.
►So I didn’t buy.
►This is what happened next…

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After a few days …
► I felt I was being stalked by a blue shirt.
► That blue shirt followed me everywhere.
► I got so fed up seeing the blue shirt I finally
found a way to opt out.
Result:
► My perception of the retailer was damaged.
► I turned off the technology, so someone lost
some revenue.
► All because the retailer had failed to consider
the customer’s experience.

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It could have been worse
►What might a colleague have
thought if he looked over my
shoulder in the office and
ladies’ blouses seemed to be
on every screen?
►Obvious: I was looking to buy
my wife a blouse for her
birthday … or perhaps not!

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It’s not all bad
news for the
consumer,
or for the retailer.

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The shirt
buyer fights
back:

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If you’ve got time to game the system
► First find what you want.
► Make sure you are registered with the
retailer as a customer.
► Visit a competitor’s web site, then go to
the retailer who stocks what you want.
● Click, pause, dither.
● Perhaps put the shirt in the basket.
● Pull out of the purchase.
► The reminder email will arrive.
► Visit again after a week or two.
► The special offer will arrive.
● BUY!
● Sale made!
Blue end on end shirt, excellent
quality, thoroughly recommended!

32. Big Data
So what about
the ethics of

33. Consilium
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Some guiding principles for Big Data
► Just because the data suggest something
● Don’t follow blindly
● Try to obtain an independent validation
► Always remember the customer experience
● Reach out to the right people
● By all means remind them you are there
… but sparingly
► … and handle the data responsibly
● Take your duty of care seriously
● Avoid excessive concentration of risk
● Avoid over-wide access to the data

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2015 Update

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Richard Holway, Industry Analyst
12th March 2014
“The biggest challenges are around privacy and cybercrime.
I fear that we do not take the threats seriously enough. In the
hands of a corrupt regime, or company, our freely given data
could be used against us.
In 25 years’time, fast access will be possible from every spot
on the planet... and possibly beyond! Every living thing of
value – like chickens, cats ... and children – will be internet
connected, as will everything from cars to curtain tracks.”

36. Consilium
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2 years’ later
nothing changes
Amex has somehow
found out from BA that
I’ve flown to Barcelona
on business twice in
the past month and
targeted me in the FT!

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And it’s all kept safely isn’t it?
2015
► July, Ashley Madison a hacker group stole information on its 37 million users.
► February, Anthem suffered a data breach of nearly 80 million records, including personal
information such as names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other sensitive
details.
► June, The Office of Personnel Management of the U.S. government suffered a data breach
in which the records of 4 million current and former federal employees of the United States
were hacked and stolen.
2014
► August, nearly 200 photographs of celebrities were posted to the image board website
4chan. An investigation by Apple found that the images were obtained "by a very targeted
attack on user names, passwords and security questions".
► September, Home Depot suffered a data breach of 56 million credit card numbers.
► October, Staples suffered a data breach of 1.16 million customer payment cards.
► November and for weeks after, Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered a data breach
involving personal information about Sony Pictures employees and their families, e-mails
between employees, information about executive salaries at the company, copies of
(previously) unreleased Sony films, and other information. The hackers involved claim to
have taken over 100 terabytes of data from Sony.

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Things can only get better?
Artificially intelligent robots could become the Kalashnikovs of
tomorrow, more than 1,000 experts, including Stephen Hawking and
Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder, have warned.
Signatories to the open letter said that the age of AI warfare was
upon us and called for a ban on “offensive autonomous weapons”
that could kill without the involvement of humans.
“Artificial intelligence technology has reached a point where the
deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible
within years, not decades,” they wrote.
“The stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as
the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms.”
The letter was presented at a conference on artificial intelligence in
Argentina.
It warned of a near future in which robots could be programmed to
kill people using predefined criteria.
“The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI
arms race or to prevent it from starting. If any major military power
pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is
virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory
is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of
tomorrow.”
They said that while the world had been able to prevent the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, this would not be the
case for AI. “Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or
hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and
cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce.”
Professor Hawking has previously warned that the unchecked
spread of the technology “could spell the end of the human race”.
Coming next?
See http://futureoflife.org/AI/open_letter

39. Pictures courtesy of Microsoft clip art, Wikimedia and others.
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