When you hear the word “Big Data”, what do you think of? Probably the way it provides major advantages to big businesses. How it allows them to develop effective strategies and offers them an insight into consumer trends. But what about its possible implications for security and intelligence?
It is believed that it’s possible to predict terrorist activity based on observations from online sources. For example trough posts on Facebook, searched keywords on Google and even the location function on your IPhone. Anything we do on the World Wide Web could be traced and analysed.
But how does it work?
The use of Big Data makes it possible to look in the future. This specific type of data analysis is called “Predictive analytics”, which is the use of data and statistical algorithms to identify the likelihood of future outcomes.
There are already police forces analysing our messages to anticipate terrorism. To decide where they should patrol on a certain day and time, they look for areas where there is some sort of “terrorist behaviour”. The goal is to significantly decrease the threat of terrorism and thus making the world a safer place. R. Horowiz, former head of the IT unit of the Israel Security Agency says that data analysis has made it possible to track down and eventually kill a number of enemies including senior Hamas leaders.
The cons
On the other hand critics claim not everything in this garden of big data analysis smells sweet. Though analysis seems to be accurate most of the time, there’s always the change of innocent people being suspected of terrorist activity because of little errors in the used algorithms.
So what about you? Do you prefer the idea of a saver world under de condition that you might be on the radar of these terrorist hunters or do you consider your privacy to be of greater value?
Sources:
https://datafloq.com/read/big-data-will-effectively-fight-terrorism/785
https://www.ciklum. com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-big-data/
http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/analytics/predictive-analytics.html
http://www.investigativeproject.org/5555/the-first-weapon-against-lone-terrorists-big-data#
Google is already planning on actively preventing teen recruits by ISIS. They have plans for a new Google program which uses a clever YouTube and search hack to display anti-propaganda to would-be jihadists. They aim to supply potential new terror recruits searching for information about ISIS with accurate information instead. They created a list of more than 1,700 keywords which trigger ads leading to clips of interviews with defectors and imams denouncing ISIS. Google’s so-called Redirect Method (a targeted advertising campaign with curated content) works by combining Google advertising algorithms and YouTube’s video platform.
“The Redirect Method is at its heart a targeted advertising campaign: Let’s take these individuals who are vulnerable to ISIS’ recruitment messaging and instead show them information that refutes it.”
“We knew if it wasn’t created explicitly for this purpose, it would be more authentic and therefore more compelling.”
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspiring-isis-recruits/
Dear Nienke, thank you for your blog! While I believe there are certain advantages to using these predictive algorithms, I also believe that it is impossible to track down everything with these algorithms right now. According to several articles (Dormehl, 2016) (Caruso, 2016) (Belluck, 2016) these algorithms still need to be developed further in order to be able to optimally use them. However, if terrorists know how they are being tracked, maybe they will find other ways to plan their attacks, as I do not think these algorithms alone can/will stop them.
Whether I would be willing to give up my privacy for more security is always a debate. I believe giving up all my privacy will not necessarily lead to more security, even if governments make you believe this is the case. I think a great part of security also lies within privacy, but I find the privacy/security debate a very hard debate, as there are advantages and disadvantages to both. But I guess that by using social media and allowing cookies and other terms&conditions, you already give up part of your privacy.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/terror-prediction-algorithm-isis/
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601700/can-a-social-media-algorithm-predict-a-terror-attack/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/science/fighting-isis-with-an-algorithm-physicists-try-to-predict-attacks.html
Thanks for your post Nienke. Personally I believe that whatever tool can be used in order to tackle issues like terrorism should be utilized. Especially when it is as promising as big data analysis. My concern though is that although these tools are already in full use what is the reason behind not being able to identify the responsible people behind the attacks we have all witnessed during the previous months all over the globe. Is it because the technologies are not well developed enough yet? Is it because the counter terrorism is stronger? Is it because we did not pay the amount of attention needed? Or is it anything else? Whatever the reason is I believe that we have failed to exploit the benefits of such technologies so far in this area of predicting terrorist attacks. Big data analysis should be optimized in order to try and identify any potential threat proactively. I am sure that this will happen in the future but in front of such an imminent threat like the one we are facing right now I feel we have to devote more serious effort in achieving that goal as fast and efficiently as possible.