We are continuing our Love Data Week series at the DePaul University Library with today’s topic: Connected Conversations.
We live in an age marked by a data deluge: where data is being collected everywhere, at all times, in almost every country, by every type of organization imaginable. This article: “Fighting Discrimination in a Data-Driven World” exposes how an insurance company charges an individual living in the Chicago neighborhood East Garfield Park a significantly higher premium than a similarly rated driver who lives in the more affluent Lakeview neighborhood. The question then becomes “how can data be used for good and not merely for enhancing profits and increasing inequality?”
Cathy O’Neil has written a much-heralded book, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy that talks about the downsides to big data and how algorithms are making decisions that undermine individual agency in our own lives.
Data for Humanity: An Open Letter from the Frankfurt Big Data Lab is one initiative to get people to think about the implications of collecting and analyzing all of this data. They offer 5 principles for using and analyzing data:
1. Do no harm
2. Use data to help create peaceful coexistence
3. Use data to help vulnerable people and people in need
4. Use data to preserve and improve natural environment
5. Use data to help create a fair world without discrimination
Consider signing Data for Humanity: An Open Letter if you own or work with data.
Who owns your data? When patients don’t have access to their own health data or consumers are barred from the benefits of their data contributions, questions of benefit and access arise. Where are these conversations happening?
To read all our Love Data Week stories follow our blog series at http://bit.ly/lovedatadepaul or join the conversation with @dpulibrarian on Twitter using the #lovedata18 hashtag .