Prasenjit Sarkar

Big Data, Happy Lives? I never knew I had so much information on myself. My health, my choice of food, the route to my office, my travel plans, my bills, my money - it appears I am a significant contributor to the gazillion things that eager data scientists are feeding on. I am monetized with inducements to part with my data. Loss of privacy? Who cares? I was happy to have an App measure my footsteps, give me a count of calories burnt, encourage me to set that stretching goal. I no longer make the rounds to travel agent offices to get the best deals. A few keystrokes and my device renders the best travel plans. The integration of data and technology in our lives is almost seamless. We hardly realize we are willingly giving information away. My data is no longer my own. Amazon knows my reading preferences, Google knows how I travel, the taxi aggregator knows where my home is and a third-party knows when and where my kid is picked up for or dropped off after school. Academics argue that all this data trolling is for a cause - to improve the quality of life. The benefits that we accrue do prove the beneficial insights that can be mined from such data. Healthcare, for example, has been radically transformed by the ability to glean meaningful data and develop new drugs and treatments. Governments, private enterprises, big corporations – all of them are mining this information to gain the ability to predict the behavior of their target population. For example, MIT is using people’s mobile phone data to track traffic patterns and use the same for urban planning, services like Pandora and Spotify use it to deliver music geared towards your taste. Google uses search terms to predict the spread of flu virus – wonderful indeed! If you are one of those who stays abreast of the latest developments in technology, you would have heard of face recognition technology or new technologies like Google Glass. Facebook already uses some facets of facial recognition technology. Does all this spell doom for our private lives? How would I feel if one day I walk to the refrigerator and it refuses to open as it already knows that my body-mass index is beyond permitted healthy limits! The point is that we are willing participants. When a taxi aggregator seeks to access my phone’s GPS location and my phone dialer, we accept their terms. We volunteer information so that we can reap the benefit of access to cab hailing services. Similarly, if you are providing personal information to a banker, it is so that you can have access to financial services. In all these cases, we trade in information for the benefits that we receive in return. National identity projects across the world have helped in better administration and targeting of welfare schemes. Google Maps, Garmin have made navigation and journey planning easier. Whether its relevant content or customized services, think of data sharing as a commodity that is traded for the benefits you receive in return. Take a moment to think about how data helped you today to navigate around a traffic snarl, or gave you a way to order food or reminded you of an upcoming meeting. In a way, it helped you organize your offline life. It is important to use it wisely, be aware of potential vulnerabilities but embrace it in a way that enhances your life rather than detract from it.