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    Category: Big Data

    • Algorithmic Housing Discrimination

      It appears that HUD, as part of the general initiative to stop enforcing the housing laws it’s supposed to enforce, is poised to allow landlords to hide behind computer algorithms as they discriminate against minority tenants. As Andrew Selbst – who co-authored one of the foundational pieces on exactly this sort of problem – describes…

    • Lessons from Agre on Privacy as Capture (Part 2): Can Foucault Get Past Panopticism?

      By Gordon Hull A couple of weeks ago, I noted my newly discovered appreciation for Philip Agre’s “Surveillance and Capture” and outlined why I think his development of capture (and retreat from surveillance) is particularly applicable to the privacy concerns surrounding big data.  Here, I’d like to suggest that Agre’s distinction is also helpful in…

    • Philip Agre on Privacy and Big Data (part 1)

      By Gordon Hull A current paper by Mireille Hildebrandt sent me to a paper from 1994 that I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t read before: Philip Agre’s “Surveillance and Capture.”  Agre’s paper has been cited over 300 times, but it’s missing in a lot of the privacy literature I know.  After reading it, I’ve decided…

    • Lockean Data Rhetoric

      One of the standard talking points about data gets summed up in the “data imperative:” that the drive to accumulate data seems insatiable, and that firms will pursue accumulating it well beyond and definable economic end.  There’s a lot of literature on why this might be; I’ve tended to approach the question with the resources…

    • Why is Data so Easily Commodified (with a detour into fish)?

      By Gordon Hull Surely one of the more striking features of the rise of data science is how readily it can be incorporated into processes of capitalist valuation, to the point that data may not just be a commodity – it may also be capital.  At one level, this sounds intuitive enough: one might suggest…

    • Big Data: From Human Capital to Fridge Capital

      By Gordon Hull In a new paper in Big Data and Society, Jathan Sadowski argues for a shift in how we conceive data.  Typically, it’s viewed as a commodity.  Better, Sadowski argues, to view it as capital.  Following Marx (who offers a basic formula for capital) and Bourdieu (who extends it to cultural and social…

    • Biometeric Chicanery

      Let’s say the state passes a law that says that restaurants may not put worms in hamburgers, and that customers can sue those that do. Your kids eat at the local Annelids franchise on the way home from school, and you later discover that the burgers contain worms. You sue the restaurant, and in response,…

    • More on Facebook and Mental Health Privacy

      By Gordon Hull It’s not news that Facebook generates a lot of privacy concerns.  But it’s nonetheless worth keeping up a little, just to indicate how seriously we need to be concerned about the connection between Facebook and data analytics.  We’ve known for a while that automated analysis of Facebook likes can predict basic personality…

    • Big Data + Health Insurance = Bad

      Big data can – and very often is – used to discriminate.  It was only a matter of time before health insurers started using it to predict who might be more likely to get sick, and to charge them more (yes, they've figured out how to circumvent the ACA).  ProPublica has the story here. Be…

    • The Big Data Train Chugs On, Predictive Personality Edition

      By Gordon Hull One of the things that marketers like about big data is that they can personalize ads.  That operation is getting increasingly sophisticated.  We’ve known for a while that basic personality traits (like introversion/extraversion) can be predicted from Facebook likes.  I missed this paper when it came out, but some of the same…