Cross Posted from Global Privacy Watch

The White House released a set of reports this month on Big Data and the privacy implications of Big Data. While a number of folks have been discussing the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (“PCAST”) report, I would offer that the Office of Science and Technology Policy (“OSTP”) report needs to be read in conjunction with the PCAST report. They do two different things. One is a report on the technical state of affairs, and the other is more of a policy direction piece, which is driven by the technologically-oriented findings. Various points-of-view have been put forth as to the relative merits of each report, but there seems to be an important element missing from both reports. Both reports discuss the need for policy decisions to be based on context and on desired outcomes. Unfortunately, neither report really gives a good taxonomy around the informatics ecosystem to allow for a clear path forward on “context” and “desired outcomes”. What I mean by this is best summed up in the comment in the PCAST report which states: “In this report, PCAST usually does not distinguish between “data” and “information”.”. “Data” and “Information” are very different things, and one really can’t have a coherent policy discussion unless the distinction between the two is recognized and managed.
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