The volume of data in the world is increasing exponentially. By some estimates, 90 per cent of the data in the world has been created in the last two years, and it is projected to increase by 40 per cent annually. A large share of this output is “data exhaust,” or passively collected data deriving from everyday interactions with digital products or services, including mobile phones, credit cards, and social media. This deluge of digital data is known as big data. Data is growing because it is increasingly being gathered by inexpensive and numerous information‐sensing, mobile devices and because the world’s capacity for storing information has roughly doubled every 40 months since the 1980s.
The Data Revolution

The data revolution -- which encompasses the open data movement, the rise of crowdsourcing, new ICTs for data collection, and the explosion in the availability of big data, together with the emergence of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things -- is already transforming society. Advances in computing and data science now make it possible to process and analyse big data in real time. New insights gleaned from such data mining can complement official statistics and survey data, adding depth and nuance to information on human behaviours and experiences. The integration of this new data with traditional data should produce high-quality information that is more detailed, timely and relevant.

UN Global Pulse

Global Pulse is an innovation initiative of the UN Secretary-General on data science. Global Pulse promotes awareness of the opportunities big data presents for sustainable development and humanitarian action, develops high-impact analytics solutions for UN and government partners through its network of data science innovation centres, or Pulse Labs, in Indonesia (Jakarta), Uganda (Kampala) and the UN Headquarters (New York), and works to lower barriers to adoption and scaling.

To safely and responsibly unlock the value of data, Global Pulse established a data privacy programme, part of which involves ongoing research into privacy-protective uses of big data for humanitarian and development purposes. Global Pulse set up a Data Privacy Advisory Group, comprised of privacy experts from the regulatory community, private sector and academia, that engages in dialogue on the critical issues around big data and advises on the development of privacy tools and guidelines across the UN. To better understand the risks linked to big data, Global Pulse developed a two-phase “Risk, Harms and Benefits Assessment” tool, which includes guidelines to help practitioners assess the proportionality of the risks, harms, and utility in a data-driven project.

Global Pulse was also involved in the organization of the UN Data Innovation Lab workshop series, an initiative led by UNICEF and WFP. Consisting of five thematic workshops, the series aimed to understand existing data innovation capabilities and needs within the UN system.