Vol. 11:5] Omer Tene and Jules Polonetsky
¶2 The Obama Administration has recently announced a new, multi-agency big data
research and development initiative aimed at advancing the core scientific and
technological means of managing, analyzing, visualizing, and extracting information
from large, diverse, distributed, and heterogeneous data sets.
This initiative is based on
recognition of the immense social and economic value captured in information and the
intention to unleash it in order to progress from data to knowledge to action.
Big data
boosts the economy, transforming traditional business models and creating new
opportunities through the use of business intelligence, sentiment analysis, and analytics.
It advances scientific research, transforming scientific methods from hypothesis-driven to
data-driven discovery.
Big data furthers national goals such as optimization of natural
resources, response to national disasters, and enhancement of critical information
infrastructure.
¶3 The extraordinary societal benefits of big data—including breakthroughs in
medicine, data security, and energy use—must be reconciled with increased risks to
individuals’ privacy.
As is often the case, technological and business developments in
big data analysis have far outpaced the existing legal frameworks, which date back from
an era of mainframe computers, predating the Internet, mobile, and cloud computing.
http://idpl.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/15.full.
News Release, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, Obama
Administration Unveils “Big Data” Initiative: Announces $200 Million in New R&D Investments (Mar. 29,
2012), http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/big_data_press_release.pdf.
Personal Data: The Emergence of a New Asset Class, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (2011),
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_ITTC_PersonalDataNewAsset_Report_2011.pdf; Steve Lohr, New
U.S. Research Will Aim at Flood of Digital Data, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 29, 2012,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/technology/new-us-research-will-aim-at-flood-of-digital-
data.html?_r=2.
See Chris Anderson, The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete,
WIRED, June 23, 2008, available at http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory;
see also Peter Norvig, UBC Department of Computer Science’s Distinguished Lecture Series: The
Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data, (Sept. 23, 2010), available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvDCzhbjYWs.
Farnam Jahanian, Assistant Director, National Science Foundation, NSF Keynote at TechAmerica's
Big Data Congressional Briefing, (May 2, 2012), available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do_IPa6-
E9M.
Omer Tene & Jules Polonetsky, Privacy in the Age of Big Data: A Time for Big Decisions, 64 STAN.
L. REV. ONLINE 63 (2012).
See OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data, ORG.
FOR ECON. CO-OPERATION & DEV. (Sept. 23, 1980),
http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_34255_1815186_1_1_1_1,00.html [hereinafter: OECD
Guidelines]; Council of Europe Convention 108 for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic
Processing of Personal Data, Strasbourg, (Jan. 28, 1982),
http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/treaties/html/108.htm; Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of
Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data, 1995 O.J. (L 281) 31 (Nov. 23, 1995), available at
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1995:281:0031:0050:EN:PDF [hereinafter:
European Data Protection Directive]; and in the United States: The Privacy Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-
579, 88 Stat. 1897 (Dec. 31, 1974). All of the major frameworks are being reviewed this year. See The
White House, Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and
Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy, (Feb. 2012),
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/privacy-final.pdf [hereinafter: White House Blueprint];
Federal Trade Commission Report, Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change:
Recommendations for Businesses and Policymakers (Mar. 2012),
http://ftc.gov/os/2012/03/120326privacyreport.pdf [hereinafter: FTC Final Report]; Proposal for a