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PLEASE DO NOT EDIT Jointly working on this concept with Lena Abdul

Data philanthropy

Data philanthropy describes a form of collaboration in which private sector companies share data for public benefit. There are multiple uses of data philanthropy being explored from humanitarian, corporate, human rights, and academic use. Since the introduction of this term the United Nations Global Pulse has began pushing for a global “data philanthropy movement.”

Definition

A large amount of data collected from the Internet comes from user-generated content. This includes blogs, posts on social networks, and information submitted in forms. Besides user-generated data, corporations are also currently data mining data from consumers in order to understand customers, identify new markets, and make investment decisions. Kirkpatrick the Director at United Nations Global Pulse labels this data “massive passive data” or “data exhaust.” Data philanthropy is the idea that something positive can come from this overload of data. Data philanthropy is defined as the private sector sharing this data in ways that the public can benefit. The term philanthropy helps to emphasis that data sharing is a positive act and that the shared data is a public good.

Challenges

A challenge that comes with sharing data is the Internet privacy of the user whose data is being used. Mathematical techniques (differential privacy and space time boxes]) have been introduced in order to make personal data accessible, while providing the users providing such data with anonymity. But even if these algorithms work there is always the possibility and fear of re-identification.

The other challenge is convincing corporations to share their data. The big data corporations collect provides them with market competitiveness. They are able to infer meaning regarding consumer behavior. The fear is that by sharing all their information, they may lose their competitive edge.

Sharing strategies

The goal of data philanthropy is to create a global data commons where companies, governments, and individuals can contribute anonymous, aggregated datasets. The United Nations Global Pulse offers four different tactics that companies can use to share their data that preserve consumer anonymity. These include:

1. Share aggregated and derived data sets for analysis under nondisclosure agreements (NDA)
2. Allow researchers to analyze data within the private company’s own network, under NDA
3. Real-Time Data Commons: data pooled and aggregated between multiple companies of the same industry to protect competitiveness
4. Public/Private Alerting Network: companies mine data behind their own firewalls and share indicators

By providing these four tactics United Nations Global Pulse hopes to provide initiative and options for companies to share their data with the public.

Digital disease detection

Data philanthropy has led to advancements in the field of health and wellness. By using data gathered from social media, cell phones, and other communication modes health researchers have been able to track the spread of diseases.

In the United States HealthMap, a freely available website and mobile app software is using data philanthropy related tactics to track the outbreak of diseases. HealthMap analyzes data from publicly available media sources such as news websites, government alerts, and social media sites like Twitter for outbreaks of various illnesses around the world. The creators of HealthMap have another website, Flu Near You, which allows users to report their own health status on a weekly basis. Traditional flu surveillance can take up to 2 weeks to confirm outbreaks. Doctors must wait for virological test to confirm the outbreak before reporting it to the Centers for Disease Control. This form of data philanthropy allows for up to date information regarding various health concerns by using publicly available information gathered from news outlets, government alerts, and social media sites. It is the data gathered on social media sites, where users are not aware their data is being mined that leads to HealthMap and Flue Near You being considered data philanthropy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google and launched Google Flu Trends in 2008, a website that tracks flu-related searches and user location to track the spread of the flu. Users can visit the website to compare the amount of flu-related search activity against the reported numbers of flu outbreaks on a graphic map. The difficulty with this method of tracking is that Google searched are sometimes performed due to curiosity rather than because an individual is suffering from the flu. According to Ashley Fowlkes, an epidemiologist in the CDC Influenza division, “the Google Flu Trends system tries to account for that type of media bias by modeling search terms over time to see which ones remain stable.” Google Flu Trends is not longer publishing current flu estimates on the public website. Visitors to the site can still view and download previous estimates. Current data can be shared with verified researchers.

A study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) released in the October 12, 2012 issues of the journal Science discussed how phone data helped curb the spread of malaria in Kenya. The researchers mapped phone calls and texts made by 14,816,521 Kenyan mobile phone subscribers. When individuals left their primary living location the destination and length of journey was calculated. This data was then compared to a 2009 malaria prevalence map to estimate the disease’s commonness in each location. Combining all this information the researchers can estimate the probability of an individual carrying malaria and map the movement of the disease. This research, a result of data philanthropy, can be used to track the spread of similar diseases.