Deep fat fryers and Big Data - Where's the privacy line?
Sombit Mishra
This NY Times piece provokes important questions about the future of Big Data:
- Should a health insurer or employer be able to know a user's online shopping/browsing habits (i.e. purchases of a deep fat fryer)? What should the restrictions be on how this type of data is collected and used?
- What's the return on Big Data for consumers and providers? Does this warrant the breach of privacy? Where's the line?
The best quote comes from MIT's Sandy Pentland: "Like anything new, people make up just-so stories about Big Data, privacy and data sharing...We’re trying to test and learn."