At the Analytics: Big Data and the Cloud conference in Edmonton (2012), I attended a keynote speech by Dr. Gautam Shroff. He spoke of the many ways big data can be used, including data that many of us simply give away. Sharing the results of a study focusing on 68 hours of Twitter data, Shroff noted that it was possible to narrow down to one (randomly-chosen) Tweeter's home and work sites based on that individual's GPS-enabled posts.
My quick thoughts: Data of this sort (GPS, etc.) is often freely given away by users. Other data, such as the now much-discussed divorce of federal (Canadian) Member of Parliament Vic Toews, becomes public by virtue of the legal processes the data is embedded within. While governmental agencies and products such as the Alberta Netcare system are supposed to be kept secure from unauthorised access, how many of us pay attention to the virtual footprints we leave behind? Perhaps merely analysing publicly-available data allows our private lives to be more public than we imagine.
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