Big Questions for Big Data

[Commentary] Ninety percent of the world's data has been created in the last two years alone. Big data can and will be a big help in addressing the world's urban challenges, but big data raises big questions.

1. Crowded Agendas - Government has limited agenda space, that is the number of issues that policymakers can meaningfully address at any one time. Big data will clearly identify many gaps in existing policies and programs, but it will also identify issues not yet on the agenda and mobilize latent interests that had yet to organize and demand attention. While it is ultimately "good" to address these "silent" gaps, will big data possibly overload the very policymaking process we had hoped to make better with more information?
2. Organizational Capacity - Data are resources, but they are not information. Translating data into information and knowledge takes organizational capacity that does not exist in most of the world's urban centers, e.g., a new generation of "data professionals," processes and tools to gather, digest and transform big data into information that can be understood and used to make mundane urban operations such as ensuring that the traffic signals are working to making major investment decisions to determine whether a new rail systems should be built.
3. Objective Data, Subjective Analysis - Data are objective; however, how those data are weighted and how the analysis is used is not. Better information does not relieve the public or decision makers of making value judgments on any number of urgent problems facing today's cities. Consider just a few. How much are we willing to pay for what level of environmental quality? How safe is safe enough? How clean is clean enough? At what point has housing equity been reached? Is an average delay of three minutes in transit operations acceptable but five minutes throws up a red flag on the big data dashboard?
4. Public Trust - If your phone, along with everyone else's, provides useful GPS data to better understand transportation behavior within the city -- is that your data? Where does it go, who owns it and who is responsible to ensure that your "data of one" remains private? Will your data ever be sold? Will it ever be used to detect illegal or undesirable behaviors? Given the worldwide decline in public trust in public and private institutions the case for unfettered personal data sharing on the basis of regional economics or public good alone may not go far.
5. Can Big Data Make Us Happy? - Big data is often discussed in the context of helping public and private organizations make better decisions. But, decisions about what? Will big data simply make what cities do today more efficient, effective and environmentally sustainable? Yes, but is that enough?