Big Data - Is data feudalism a danger for democracy?

Big Data promises great social progress, but also carries the potential for misuse - it could even be a danger for democracy. When access to the data and the means to analyse them is restricted to a selected few, democratic decisions can be manipulated; citizens can be left out of political debate; and personal perceptions might be intentionally biased. Together with two experts in the field, we discussed the chances and pitfalls of Big Data for our society. This was a show debate and the official start of our Debating Training "reatch - don't preach" in collaboration with the Debating Club of ETH Zürich.

29.09.2016

Universität Zürich

Free

Free

Whether we’re shopping on the Internet, accessing an entry in the navigation system, transferring money from the bank account, having a phone conversation with our business partner or interacting with friends on Facebook and Twitter - almost all of our everyday activities produce huge sets of data.

“Big Data”, the large-scale collection, storage and analysis of personal data, has become one of the corner-stones of modern business and science. When used properly, those data streams offer us valuable insights into the past, present and possibly future behaviour of people. From calculating commuting flows, predicting an individual’s state of health or estimating incidences of disease in a certain population - large data sets can help us improving the lives of many people.

With great power…

Big Data promises great social progress, but also carries the potential for misuse - it could even be a danger for democracy. When access to the data and the means to analyse them is restricted to a selected few, democratic decisions can be manipulated; citizens can be left out of political debate; and personal perceptions might be intentionally biased.

This event was opened by an Expert Panel including Prof. Dr. Abraham Bernstein, Chairman of the Department of Informatics + Co-Director of the Digital Society Initaitive of the University of Zurich and Prof. Dr. Serge Bignens, Professor of Medical Informatics at the Bern University of Applied Sciences + Board of Directors of the Swiss Society of Medical Informatics, who were defining Big Data. In a second part Sebastian Helg and Martin Reinhart from the Debating Club joined. The idea was to demonstrate, that an informed discussion is possible even if you are not an expert. And secondly, that you can achieve to embrace arguments in a debate that are not necessarily your opinion. Both things were thaught in the debating training "reatch don't preach".

The show debate and trainings are co-organised with the Debating Club of ETH Zürich.

Mitwirkende


Gesamtleitung

Servan Grüninger und Fabienne Odermatt


Moderation

Servan Grüninger


Apéro & Saalvorbereitung

Martin Roszkowski


Werbung & Medien

Fabienne Odermatt (Leitung)

Joel Lüthi


Fotografie & Film

Joel Lüthi (Leitung)

Sara von Salis