(US and Canada) Peter Aiken and Todd Harbour recently launched their third co-authored book, "Data Literacy: Achieving Higher Productivity for Citizens, Knowledge Workers, and Organizations, First Edition."

In conversation with Data Leader Althea Davis, Aiken and Harbour speak about the societal impact of data.

Aiken shares that the real key is to understand that the goal is to feed people more advertising in the most benign possible sense. He shares that this is horrible for a starter. It is precisely the manipulation of people’s behavior that is the crux of advertising. He shares that we have seen changes in people’s behavior due to simple data analysis. For example, the entire Cambridge Analytica Scandal demonstrated that we could elect people in Malaysia who were not electable. Still, because Analytica was allowed to manipulate Facebook postings around this, they were able to literally transform society. So, he shares that while one might say, “Oh, it’s only advertising,” he doesn’t think that’s a good excuse as we talk about control and power in society.

Aiken shares that we have this delusion that people are smarter about data because they’ve been using their smart devices all this time. However, they are not.  For example, an app asks, “Can I get access to your location?” Well, that sounds like a free request. But the measurements around this are as high as 14,000 times a day; your location is pushed each day. That’s a bit more information than just where you are, and it also tells how long you’re spending at each location on a Friday. That’s literally like having somebody on your shoulder, following you around all the time; you might as well be wearing a body cam. 

Sharing further, Harbour explains the part of the book that covers the concept of caring. “Parents are now giving their kids phones and other technology very early, and you can quickly see how children adapt. They become experts very quickly at the mechanical part, pressing buttons, sliding things, manipulating the device to get whatever they want."

These apps monitor things along the way, he continues. They are counting everything because, from a corporate perspective, they can learn information about their market through customers, which may or may not be good. He shares that ATS is the next step up of awareness on the data literacy scale. So, you have adults generating massive amounts of data. They’re creating all kinds of data, and they may know a little bit more than a child, but not necessarily all they should know. “So, all we’re trying to say is there’s a scale. We all go through a scale of awareness, knowledge, and literacy, and now it starts at a very early age.”

The easiest, fastest way to make your system and your entire organization more data literate is by bringing data literacy into your organization and getting the knowledge workers to do it, Aiken says. “We can put knowledge workers under a code of conduct. We can make meaning around data, just as we do concerning security.”