by Julia Lane, Victoria Stodden, Stefan Bender, Helen Nissenbaum

In the current digital age, data about many different aspects of human behavior are being produced at an unprecedented scale and speed. The capacity to easily obtain and analyze tax records, electricity consumption, commercial transactions, and social media streams, for example, can provide policymakers with access to fine-grained measures of citizens’ needs and preferences, and thus lead to more efficient policymaking. Yet the potential use of big data for public good also presents new challenges regarding privacy and data ownership that require rethinking the ethical and legal framework in which governments, researchers, and companies operate. The book Privacy, Big Data, and the Public Good: Frameworks for Engagement, edited by Julia Lane, Victoria Stodden, Stefan Bender, and Helen Nissenbaum, represents a major step toward providing an adequate response to these challenges.