Crash Course: Statistics
Example: Unethical Data Collection
06:28 - 07:32
Uses an example to show how data collection can be unethical.
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Video Transcript
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can become more cloudy.
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Our last story here isn’t real but it illustrates the complexities of research ethics in the
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digital age.
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In the seventh season of the hit show Parks and Recreation, a giant internet corporation
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comes to the small town of Pawnee, Indiana, to offer free Wifi to the entire city.
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Everyone gladly accepts, they like the free service.
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But when boxes of personalized gifts arrive at every citizen’s doorstep, some become--understandably--concerned.
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Because, the gifts are perfect, fitting the exact interests of the recipient.
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Someone who collects stuffed pigs dressed as celebrities get “Hamuel L. Jackson”
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and someone obsessed with politics get the newest Joe Biden poetry collection.
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These boxes are perfect for the people who received them--eerily perfect.
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So how did the internet company know what each person would want?
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It turns out that the free WiFi came with a pretty high cost, privacy.
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In exchange for the free WiFi the internet company, Gryzzl, was collecting all data that
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was transferred over their Network, this gets called Data Mining.
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And it may seem far-fetched, but it’s happening right now.
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Not the gift stuff.
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The data mining.
