1) The document discusses how data has become ubiquitous in society but people's ability to understand and work with data has not kept pace. 2) It provides tips for improving personal data privacy and literacy, such as using privacy settings, encryption, limiting location sharing, and educating yourself on data collection and usage. 3) Finally, it argues that collaborations are needed to ensure data ethics and that data can be used to democratize knowledge, not just for profit, if infrastructure enables all of society to access and build upon data.

1. Mary Aviles
EarlyWorks VP of Insight & Experience
Rotary Club of Troy | January 29, 2020
HOW DATA FLUENT
ARE YOU?

2. “Data are everywhere…our actions
generate data and our decisions hinge
on realizations derived from data…data
that operate systems have moved rapidly
into all aspects of society…However, our
capacity for working, learning, and
thinking with data in the modern world
has not kept up.”
- The Concord Consortium

3. Source: iProperty Management

4. Source: Information is Beautiful

5. Photo by Nicolas J Leclercq on Unsplash

13. What can we do?

14. Lock up your data,
make it harder to use
Hackers
(objective: money)
Marketers/Corporations
(objective: drive behavior)
Hide your identity,
and use encrypted platforms
(e.g., Duck Duck Go or Brave)
Other People
(objective: various, e.g., 39% of all
data breaches are internal)
Use privacy settings,
encrypted platforms,
encrypted data
Government
(objective: various)
Requires “intense”
technology to erase your
digital prints
Personal privacy priorities depend upon
where the risk originates

16. 1. Stop sharing your
location data with your
apps
2. Disable your mobile ad
ID
3. Prevent Google from
storing your location
4. Try the Privacy Pro
SmartVPN app

18. Baseline steps you can take include:
1. Educate yourself (e.g., data
collection, data discovery, data
interrogation, the lifecycle of data)
2. Consider the risks
3. Initiate a credit security freeze
4. Print your credit report quarterly
5. Opt out of credit card offers
6. Claim your social security and IRS
online profiles
7. Vary your online behavior, use
alternative browsers (e.g., Duck
Duck Go, Brave)
8. Don’t use public Wi-Fi to access
sensitive sites -- stay off Wi-Fi
completely
9. Only use HTTPS encrypted sites
when in public, especially at hotels
10. Buy unlimited data plan (and
consider a VPN)

20. “We need to reject the social
acceptability of being bad at math
[data]...When we echo sentiments
like that to ourselves and each other,
we perpetuate a myth that increases
overall phobia…evidence clearly
shows this is a subject in which we
can all learn and succeed.”
- Sian Bellock, Barnard College

21. Source: Dear Data

23. Rumman Chowdhury:
A public and private collaboration
on data ethics is absolutely
necessary and vital. We need
values that are not just based on
efficiency and profitability…

26. “Data has the potential to
democratize knowledge-building
and decision-making in the public
sphere, but in order to reach this
potential we need to be deliberate
about putting infrastructure in place
and ensuring that people across all
sectors of society can use it (and
build new parts).”
- The Concord Consortium

29. Source: Shannon Mattern, Local Codes: Forms of Spatial Knowledge

33. Thank you!
@early_works
@Connect4Mary
Earlyworksllc.com/blog