I’ve spent a lot of time considering when, and if, business intelligence may cross the line. Is there a point when BI becomes profiling? When does "The Minority Report" become a reality and we’re looking to use information and trending data to prevent things that haven’t happened yet? We’re in this constant state of protection upgrades with travel, terrorism and more. If we use BI and information tools in general to their fullest potential, they can’t help but lead to predictive behavior analysis (sorry, it sounds more official than it is).
SSWUG.ORG is based in Tucson, AZ. We’ve just been through, and are still working through, this whole mass shooting and it’s becoming more and more clear that there were signs that the shooter was unstable and headed for trouble. It’s great to look back and say that someone should have done something… but would we, as a society, allow for that? If we use the data, the business (or social) intelligence that we have, do we allow for the arrest or intervention with someone because they’re likely to commit a crime?
Taking this to less of an extreme, BI is really a good deal about profiling. Profiling is a no-no though, but customized offerings are good. Huh?
Where *is* the line? What’s OK, and what’s too far? Sure, we haven’t knocked the whole "sharing information between organizations" thing, even at the government agency level, but you can bet there are and will continue to be calls for it. What happens as those wrinkles get ironed out? What if someone gets the profile RIGHT – is it ok to prevent a future issue based on profiled data? What if they get it wrong??
What do you think? Let me know…