While massive datasets may feel very abstract, they are intricately linked to physical place and human culture. And places, like people, have their own individual character and grain.

When dealing with data, scientists have often struggled to account for the risks and harms using it might inflict. One primary concern has been privacy - the disclosure of sensitive data about individuals, either directly to the public or indirectly from anonymised data sets through computational processes of re-identification.

As we move into an era in which personal devices are seen as proxies for public needs, we run the risk that already-existing inequities will be further entrenched. Thus, with every big data set, we need to ask which people are excluded. Which places are less visible? What happens if you live in the shadow of big data sets?

Kate Crawford Quotes