The Hidden Information in Digital Trails

A group of students at M.I.T. have set aside their privacy and volunteered to become guinea pigs in an experiment which examines digital trails, and the information that can be extracted from them. Using this “collective intelligence” researchers hope data can be gathered from which valuable and hidden insights can be gleamed.

The New York Times reports:

Mr. Brown and about 100 other students living in Random Hall at M.I.T. have agreed to swap their privacy for smartphones that generate digital trails to be beamed to a central computer. Beyond individual actions, the devices capture a moving picture of the dorm’s social network.

The students’ data is but a bubble in a vast sea of digital information being recorded by an ever thicker web of sensors, from phones to GPS units to the tags in office ID badges, that capture our movements and interactions. Coupled with information already gathered from sources like Web surfing and credit cards, the data is the basis for an emerging field called collective intelligence.

Propelled by new technologies and the Internet’s steady incursion into every nook and cranny of life, collective intelligence offers powerful capabilities, from improving the efficiency of advertising to giving community groups new ways to organize.

NYT: “You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?”