Data analyticsCambridge Analytica: the data analytics industry is already in full swing

By David Beer

Published 23 March 2018

Revelations about Cambridge Analytica have laid bare the seeming lack of control that we have over our own data. Suddenly, with all the talk of “psychographics” and voter manipulation, the power of data analytics has become the source of some concern. But the risk is that if we look at the case of Cambridge Analytica in isolation, we might prevent a much wider debate about the use and control of our data. By focusing on the reports of extreme practices, we might miss the many everyday ways that data analytics are now shaping our lives.

Revelations about Cambridge Analytica have laid bare the seeming lack of control that we have over our own data. Suddenly, with all the talk of “psychographics” and voter manipulation, the power of data analytics has become the source of some concern.

But the risk is that if we look at the case of Cambridge Analytica in isolation, we might prevent a much wider debate about the use and control of our data. By focusing on the reports of extreme practices, we might miss the many everyday ways that data analytics are now shaping our lives.

The data analytics industry is much more diverse and far-reaching than the current news coverage might lead us to believe. During a recent project, I found something quite different to the reports that we are now seeing about Cambridge Analytica.

Despite having its origins in the 1970s, when computer scientists and processing experts were beginning to try to imagine what a data-informed organization might look like, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the data analytics industry began to really develop. Some of the most famous early examples of the organisational and individual application of data analytics were in sport, and particularly in football, where data was gathered to try to enhance performance levels, to find hidden patterns within games or to spot potential talent.

Beyond this, the use of data in different sectors has spread drastically in the last 20 years, most markedly in the fields of performance management, advertising and marketing, as well as some notable developments in security and risk. This has included things like workplace talent metrics and postcode level classfications, through to the use of data about lifestyles to fix insurance premiums or in credit scoring. The increasing harvesting of data – enabled by the new infrastructures of GPS, RFID sensors, internet shopping, smartphones and social media – has created a range of new opportunities for data harvesting. As the data began to pile up, a burgeoning industry emerged.