Page 29 - ICE BUSINESS TIMES February 2020

A Quick Tour of the Data
G oogle “data as a currency,” and you’ll get back
search results in the millions. “What if Web
Users Could Sell Their Own Data?” asks a
blogger for the New York Times. A story in
Information Management highlights “Big Data
Analytics: The Currency of the 21st Century
Enterprise.” You’ll find stories heralding big
data as the new currency for science, stories on the personal data
marketplace, and even stories on stolen data as a currency—not
to mention prominent TED talks, World Economic Forum studies,
and multiple books on the subject. The gist of the argument:
Personal data has an economic value that can be bought, sold,
and traded.
Remarkably, one area has gone largely unexplored: the role that
government will—or should—play in establishing data as a
currency. Given the problems governments face in maintaining
stable monetary systems, many data enthusiasts would just as
soon have government stay away from this emerging instrument
of exchange. Like it or not, that’s not going to happen. For one
thing, the government is one of the biggest producers of
data—and one of the few major producers that deliver data to the
public free of charge. At last count, more than 1 million data sets
from governments around the world were available on the web.
Second, governments already regulate how organizations may
use personal data, what privacy rights individuals have, and
myriad other issues involved with the new data marketplace. If
anything, regulation is likely to increase in coming years as
privacy advocates and consumers step up their demands.
Lastly, revelations of the use of private data by the US
intelligence community have brought the issue of co-mingling of
public and private data to the forefront of public debate. While
the politics are beyond the scope of this article, public consensus
on the balance between privacy, security, and the flow of personal
data will be critical to realize the promise the new data economy
represents. Will government encourage and stimulate a vibrant
exchange in this new currency, or will it just get in the way?
Government is one of the biggest producers of data—and one of
the few that deliver data to the public free of charge.
Governments already regulate how organizations may use
personal data and myriad other issues related to data. The
question, then, isn’t really whether government should get
involved in the new data marketplace, but rather how it should
take part.
Government can play three principal roles in the emerging data
economy: producer, consumer, and facilitator. But before we
examine these roles, it’s important to gain a better understanding
of the emerging data marketplace.
Economy
Ninety percent of the data in the world
today was created in the last two years.
Between now and 2020, the global volume
of digital data is expected to multiply
products they’ve bought, what movies they
another 40 times or more. Much of that
new information will consist of personal
details: where people have been, what
like, which candidates they support—the
list is nearly endless.
Companies are working hard to cash in on
the market for personal data. They range
from aggregator behemoths such as
information on as many as 500 million
consumers globally, to start-ups such as
Rapleaf and Acxiom, which hold
Personal.com, which helps individuals
control and make use of their own
personal data. Government is also an
important player in the data economy, not
just as a regulator but also as a significant
provider and consumer of data.
Big data and open data:
what's what and why
does it matter?
Big data and the new phenomenon of open
data are closely related but they're not the
same. Open data brings a perspective that
can make big data more useful, more
democratic, and less threatening.
While big data is defined by size, open
data is defined by its use. Big data is the
term used to describe very large, complex,
rapidly-changing datasets. But those
judgments are subjective and dependent on
technology: today's big data may not seem
so big in a few years when data analysis
and computing technology improves.
Open data is accessible public data that
people, companies, and organizations can
use to launch new ventures, analyze
patterns and trends, make data-driven
decisions, and solve complex problems. All
definitions of open data include two basic
features: the data must be publicly
available for anyone to use, and it must be
licensed in a way that allows for its reuse.
Open data should also be relatively easy to
use, although there are gradations of
"openness". And there's general agreement
that open data should be available free of
charge or at minimal cost.
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