Coyer Speaks at CEU's University-Wide Seminar on the Dark Side of Big Data

The availability and analysis of big data opens up enormous opportunities for research, but is not without serious dangers, faculty concluded at "The Amazing Potential and the Dark Side of Big Data," a university-wide seminar organized as part of CEU's Intellectual Themes Initiative, which brings research, teaching and outreach projects under four interdisciplinary themes, one of which is Networks.

The presentations were followed by a discussion among the presenters, joined by Kate Coyer, director of the Civil Society and Technology Project for the Center for Media, Data and Society at the School of Public Policy, who is currently a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Gabor Kezdi, professor in the Department of Economics, also joined.

"Who's collecting data, for what purpose, and who has access?" Coyer asked. "We have the private sector as collectors and aggregators, and what is their relationship with governments? Data becomes a benign term... it's about our identity. Who is at risk? All of us."

Read more about the seminar here or check out the video recording below.

Photo: CEU/Peter Lorenz