A presentation from Roeland Beerten (Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Royal Statistical Society) as part of the Young Policy Professionals event, ‘Public policy in the “big data” age’, held on 9 March 2016 at the National Audit Office, London.

1. Bigger data, better policy?
Public Policy in the Big Data Age
Young Policy Professionals - 9th March 2016
Roeland Beerten
Director of Policy & Public Affairs
r.beerten@rss.org.uk
@roelandb

2. Big Data: what’s in a name?
Google Trends “big data”, 29/02/16

3. Big Data: what’s in a name?
“Medium data”
“Rich data”
“Deep data”
“We’re dripping with data”
Data is everywhere

4. Big Data: what’s in a name?
• More data being generated
• Transactional, IoT
• More processing power
• More interest in data
• Implications?
• Policy making
• Ethics: public trust – and further

5. Bigger data, better policy?
• Huge potential of having more data
• But data are the raw material
• Should data inform policy, or evidence?
• What’s the difference?

6. Bigger data, better policy?
Data are not error-free

7. Bigger data, better policy?
Data are not value-free

8. Bigger data, better policy?

9. Bigger data, better policy?
From data to evidence
• Who asks the questions?
• Who makes the judgements?
• Professional qualifications?
• Frameworks for quality (e.g. UKSA CoP)
• Culture change – but boundaries of change:
• Data skills and literacy important for all
• Ethics

10. Big data ethics
• More possibilities, also more risks
• Estimate ethnicity based on surnames?
• Micro-targeting for advertising
• Categorised web users into “probably bipolar”,
“daughter killed in car crash”, “rape victim”, and
“gullible elderly”

11. Big data ethics
Not just data itself – algorithms are black boxes

12. Big data ethics
Public concerns, but wider
• Data trust deficit
• Wider: coverage, group privacy, discrimination
Which mechanisms?
• Professional competence, frameworks
• Transparency
• Public engagement, test beds, positive use cases
• Council for Big Data Ethics

13. Want to know more?
The Opportunities and Ethics of Big Data
http://www.rss.org.uk/Images/PDF/influencing-change/2016/rss-report-opps-and-ethics-of-
big-data-feb-2016.pdf
Number Hygiene
http://www.statslife.org.uk/images/pdf/rss-number-hygiene-list-2014.pdf
RSS Courses: Presenting Data
Understanding and Analysing Data
www.rss.org.uk/courses