EU ministers hold Big Meeting on Big Data. But how will they get you to hand it over?

Europe’s Industry and Internal Market Ministers have been told to have a good long think about Big Data before showing up to their next meeting in Brussels on 2 March. The “theme” of the next Competitiveness council meeting is “Unlocking Europe's digital potential: faster and wider innovation through open, networked and data- …

[WonkoTheSane]

I, for one, do not wish to be transparent

(because that would be... ew!)

Skull - because bones --->

[T. F. M. Reader]

Re: I, for one, do not wish to be transparent

@WonkoTheSane: I, for one, do not wish to be transparent

(because that would be... ew!)

I, for one, do not want to be transparent because basic physics says I will necessarily have to be blind then. In more sense than one, it seems...

[Trollslayer]

Does it include them?

And how deep their trotters are in the through??

[Queeg]

You can have...

My Personal, Private Big Data when you tear it from my cold, dead hands (I may just be the last non Fakebook, Twitter, Tumblr user on the planet by then).

By that time it'll be pretty much obsolete as far as I'm concerned.

Monetizing corpses,Soylent Green Wafer anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ministers?

This does lead to the question, what exactly does any politician and ministers in particular know about this digital thing they call big data?

Past experience says the answer to that is they know nothing except how to mess things up for everyone else.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wont TTIP set the ground rules for this kind of thing ?

[strum]

Serious question

Can anyone tell me - has anyone actually produced anything useful from 'Big Data' (apart from Big Contracts)? The very little I have read seems to be contentious, to say the least.

Are these guys running after a bandwagon with no wheels, or is there a genuine case for the value of Big Data?

(I asked this question a few days ago, but the thread had died.)

[D Moss Esq]

"... how will they get you to hand it over?"

The standard answers include:

1. National security. You want to be safe? Give us your data. Ref. Communications Data Bill and Edward Snowden.

2. Money. You want to be rich? Give us your data? Ref. Stephan Shakespeare and Nigel Shadbolt, who appear to believe that open data causes innovation.

3. Health. You want to be well? Give us your data. Ref. Tim Kelsey and care.data.

4. Social responsibility. You want to pay your debt to society that provides you with public services? Give us your data. Tim Kelsey and care.data again.

5. Tax justice. You want everyone to pay the tax they owe? Give us your data. Ref. David Gauke and the G8 initiative on tax-dodging, see HSBC passim.

6. Paedophiles. You want to eradicate paedophilia? Give us your data. Ref. David Cameron and Anonymous.

After a while you get the idea that all good things come from open data.

There might be a lingering question whether the government could have access to all data and yet still somehow fail to maintain security, expand the economy, etc ... The Child Support Agency, for example, had unrestricted access to all data on its parishioners and yet still succeeded in multiplying their misery.

[Britt Johnston]

"data-intensive research"

My data is intense too, but only on bad days.

The lion-tamer's tails and whip, please...