Future of data - An initial perspective - Stephan Shakespeare, CEO and Co-Founder, YouGov

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Stephan Shakespeare -CEO and Co-Founder of YouGov plc
The Future of Data
In the last ten years we have seen an
explosion in the amount of structured data
we produce through our everyday activities.
All on-line activity, such as credit card
payments, web searches and mobile phone
calls, leaves a data exhaust, little puffs of
evidence about our behaviour, what we do
and how we think. This can now be stored,
shared and analyzed, transforming it from
meaningless numbers into life-changing tools.
Like it or not, we live in a world where
personal information can be accessed
at the click of a key on a massive scale.
Although there are myriad benefits (medicine,
education and the allocation of resources
are obvious areas), there are also significant
risks.The threat of cyber warfare is a good
example. There is no turning back, so what
does this mean for society going ahead? I
believe that in order to maximize the benefits
and minimize the risks over the next ten years
we will have to fundamentally change our
behaviours, our structures and our businesses.
Writing today, my real concern is that we
haven’t yet got a clear understanding of the
risks this new data-fuelled world brings and
therefore even less about how to deal with
them.That doesn’t mean we should over-
react. Indeed the opposite: if we haven’t
thought them through, we are more likely to
over-react in some areas and under-prepare
in others. We are obviously severely under-
prepared against cyber-terrorism, as we see
with the recent Sony debacle.
As an example of over-reaction, look at
concerns about health data, which, in
the main, can be addressed through the
judicial use of sandbox technologies and
severe penalties for misuse. Surely it is
counterintuitive to miss out on the enormous
social benefit of sharing health data because
we haven’t thought properly about how to
deal with potential risks? How do we exploit
data knowledge to positive effect and what
are the key challenges going forward?
The first big issue is how to keep the
opportunities equal. I believe that all levels
of society should benefit from the information
data crunching can deliver. But just because
the capability is there, it is not a guarantee
that it will be shared unilaterally. Currently
this is an area where new inequalities could
grow, as well as existing equalities get worse.
Data sharing and the science of getting
value from data is obviously much more
advanced in the advanced economies. It’s
quite possible that these skills will be used
to accelerate their own national well being,
both commercial and social, leaving less
technologically based societies behind. It
would be wrong to assume that technology
will be a leveler at all times.Yes, it has the
potential, but the hope that it will have an
equalizing effect is by no means assured.
Data Inequalities
I believe that all levels
of society should benefit
from the information data
crunching can deliver. But
just because the capability
is there, it is not a guarantee
that it will be shared
unilaterally. Currently
this is an area where new
inequalities could grow, as
well as existing equalities
get worse.
The Global Challenge
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Options and Possibilities
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There are obvious tensions between sharing,
privacy and freedom. But we must be wary
of erecting a virtual net curtain, hiding the
voyeur and leaving the public vulnerable. Why
shouldn’t youthful misdemeanors be left in
the ether? I think they should. After all, we
know that silly things sometimes happen –
even to ourselves. The trick is for us all is to
know and acknowledge what is public, and to
act accordingly.Years ago, we lived in small
communities. Our doors were unlocked and
our neighbours knew our every move. It was
considered normal. Our community is now
global, but the principal remains the same.
Some guidelines do need to be established if
we are to maximize the social benefit of data;
we must develop an agreement about what
privacy really is in reality as well as in the
virtual world.This will involve thinking afresh
about the relationship between the citizen,
governments, and corporations.
Understanding data ownership will become
a bigger issue than it already is today.
Consumers and end users will want to own
and control their personal data, but this
seemingly straightforward statement grows
more difficult to achieve with each passing
day.There isn’t much information that we
can easily say belongs to just one person.
Consider two people having a chat in a café.
The content belongs to both of them; the
fact of their meeting belongs to all who
observe it. If I have a contagious disease,
we don’t consider that information my
personal property. When a doctor takes your
temperature, does that information belong to
you, the doctor or the hospital? Data is useful
to everyone, so we must get used to sharing
particularly as more and more of our lives
becomes digitised and new issues arise.The
challenge is to develop our ethical and legal
apparatus for this, establishing a set of agreed
principals and regulatory framework that can
act as the basis
History is littered with evidence that shows
how we consistently fail to identify the next
big threat. The Greeks didn’t recognize the
Trojan Horse; the Allies in the First World
War weren’t initially concerned about aerial
warfare. Similarly, I believe we are currently
under-playing the potential impact of
cyber-attack. As more control systems are
connected to the web, more vulnerability will
inevitably appear.
Cyber-security, which involves protecting both
data and people, is facing multiple threats;
cybercrime and online industrial espionage
are growing rapidly. Last year, for example,
over 800 million records were lost, mainly
through cyber attacks.A recent estimate
by the think tank, Centre for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), puts the annual
global cost of digital crime and intellectual
property theft at $445 billion—a sum roughly
equivalent to the GDP of a smallish, rich
European country such as Austria.
Although the attacks on Target, eBay and
Sony have recently raised the risk profile
in boardrooms around the world, law
enforcement authorities are only now
grappling with the implications of a complex
online threat that knows no national
boundaries. Protection against hackers
remains weak, and security software is
continuously behind the curve.Wider concerns
have been raised by revelations of mass
surveillance by the state; a growing number of
countries now see cyber space as a new stage
for battle, and are actively recruiting hackers
as cyber warriors. How to minimize this threat
is key to all of our futures.
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Global Village
Years ago we lived in small
communities, our doors were
unlocked and our neighbours
knew our every move.
It was considered normal.
Our community is now global
but the principal remains
the same.
Shared Information
There isn’t much information
that we can easily say
belongs to just one person.
After all if two people have
a chat in a café the content
belongs to both of them and
the fact of their meeting
belongs to all who observe it.
Agreed Principles
Data is useful to everyone
so we must get used to
sharing particularly as
more and more of our lives
becomes digitised and new
issues arise. The challenge
is to develop our ethical
and legal apparatus for this,
establishing a set of agreed
principles and regulatory
framework that can act as
the basis.
Data Protection
Protection against hackers
remains weak with security
software continuously
behind the curve. Wider
concerns have been raised
by revelations of mass
surveillance by the state
and a growing number of
countries now see cyber
space as a new stage for
battle, recruiting hackers as
cyber warriors.
The way data will be optimized is changing.
It is not enough to know single lines of
information. Data must be connected
and multi layered to be relevant. It means
knowing not one thing or ten things or even
100 things about consumers but tens and
hundreds of thousands of things. It is not
big data but rather connected data – the
confluence of big data and structured data –
that matters. Furthermore, with the growth

in social tools, applications and services, the
data in the spider’s web of social networks
will release a greater value. In the UK
alone, YouGov now knows 120,000 pieces of
information about over 190,000 people. This
is being augmented every day. The analysis
of this allows organisations both public and
private to shape their strategy for the
years ahead.
We are also growing a huge data-store
of over a million people’s opinions and
reported behaviours. These are explicitly
shared with us by our panelists to use
commercially as well as for wider social
benefit (indeed we pay our panelists for most
of the data shared).
But many companies exploit data that has
been collected without genuine permission;
it’s used in ways that people do not realize,
and might object to if they did. This creates
risks and obstacles for optimising the value
of all data. Failure to address this will
undermine public trust. We all have the right
to know what data others have and how they
are using it, so effective regulation about
transparency and the use of data is needed.
Europe is leading the way in this respect.
Governments, however, are the richest
sources of data, accounting for the largest
proportion of organized human activity
(think health, transport, taxation and
welfare). Although the principle that
publicly-funded data belongs to the public
remains true, certainly in the UK, we can
expect to see more companies working with,
through and around governments. Having
the largest coherent public sector datasets
gives Britain huge advantages in this
new world
It is clear that encouraging business
innovation through open data could
transform public services and policy making,
increasing efficiency and effectiveness. In
the recent Shakespeare Review it was found
that data has the potential to deliver a £2bn
boost to the economy in the short-term,
with a further £6-7bn further down the line1
.
However, the use of public data becomes
limited when it involves private companies.
To address this in the future, when
companies pitch to work with governments,
preference should be given to those that
share an open data policy, or at least the
relevant parts. Furthermore, where there
is a clear public interest in wide access to
privately generated data – such as trials of
new medicines -- there is a strong argument
for even greater transparency.
Aside from governments (whose data
provision is by no means perfect) access
to large, cheap data sets is difficult. The
assumption is that everything is available
for crunching and that the crunching will
be worth the effort. But the reality is that
there are different chunks of big data –
scientific, business and consumer – which are
collected, stored and managed in multiple
ways. Access to relevant information let
alone the crunching of it will take some
doing. On top of this, much corporate and
medical data is still locked away, stuck on
legacy systems that will take years to unpick.
Many would say the sensible thing is to
adopt a policy of standardization, particularly
for the medical industry, given the growing
number of patients living with complex long-
term conditions. And yet, many standards
abound. So in addition to regulation around
transparency, over the next ten years we can
expect to see agreement on standardisation
in key areas.
But the potential benefits from this wealth
of information is only available if there are
the skills to interpret the data. Despite
Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, saying
that “the sexy job of the next ten years
will be statisticians;” number crunchers
are in short supply (or at least not always
available in the right locations at the right
time). By 2018 there will be a “talent gap” of
between 140,000 and 190,000 people, says
the Mc¬Kinsey Global Institute. The shortage
of analytical and managerial talent is a
pressing challenge, one that companies and
policy makers must address.
Separately, it is entirely plausible that the
infrastructure required for the storage and
transmission of data may struggle to keep
pace with the increasing amounts of data
being made available. Data generation is
expanding at an eye-popping pace: IBM
estimates that 2.5 quintillion bytes are
being created every day and that 90% of the
3
Connected Data
Data must be connected and
multi layered to be relevant.
It means knowing not one
thing or ten things or even
100 things about consumers
but tens and hundreds of
thousands of things. It is not
big data but rather connected
data – the confluence of big
data and structured data that
matters.

Proposed Way Forward
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world’s stock of data is less than two years
old. A growing share of this is being kept
not on desktops but in data centres such as
the one in Prineville, Oregon, which houses
huge warehouses containing rack after
rack of computers for the likes of Facebook,
Apple and Google. These buildings require
significant amounts of capital investment
and even more energy. Locations where
electricity generation can be unreliable or
where investment is limited may be unable
to effectively process data and convert it to
useful, actionable knowledge. Yet, it is the
growing populations in these same areas –
parts of Asia and Africa, for example – that
will accelerate data creation, as more of its
inhabitants develop online activities and
exhibit all the expected desires of a newly
emerging middle class. How should this
be managed?
4
Public Data
Economically connected data
can clearly play a significant
role that will benefit not
only private commerce but
also national economies and
their citizens. For example
the judicial analysis of data
can provide the public sector
with a whole new word of
performance potential.
Data Exploitation
If it is discovered that
companies exploit data that
has been collected without
genuine permission and
use it in ways that have
no societal benefit there
is a risk that a negative
public response will limit
opportunities for everyone.
Economically connected data can clearly
benefit not only private commerce but also
national economies and their citizens. For
example, the judicial analysis of data can
provide the public sector with a whole new
world of performance potential. In a recent
report, consultancy firm McKinsey suggested
that if US healthcare were to use big data
effectively, the sector could create more than
$300 billion in value every year, while in the
developed economies of Europe, government
administrators could save more than €100
billion ($149 billion) in operational efficiency
improvements alone.
It is understandable that many citizens
around the world regard the collection of
personal information with deep suspicion,
seeing the data flood as nothing more
than a state or commercial intrusion into
their privacy. But there is scant evidence
that these sorts of concerns are causing a
fundamental change in the way data is used
and stored.
That said, we must all have a care. As public
understanding increases, so will concerns
about privacy violation and data ownership.
If it is discovered that companies are
exploiting data that has been collected
without genuine permission and are using it
in ways that have no societal benefit, there
is a considerable risk of a public backlash
that will limit opportunities for everyone.
The shelf life of the don’t- know-so-don’t-ask
approach to data collection will be short.
Some in the industry believe governments
need to intervene to protect privacy.
In Britain, for instance, the Information
Commissioner’s Office is working to
develop new standards to publicly certify
an organisation’s compliance with data-
protection laws. But critics think such
proposals fall short of the mark—especially
in light of revelations of America’s National
Security Agency (NSA) ran a surveillance
programme, PRISM, which collected
information directly from the servers of big
technology companies such as Microsoft,
Google and Facebook.
From a marketing perspective, detailed
awareness of customer habits will enable
technology to discriminate in subtle ways.
Some online retailers already use “predictive
pricing” algorithms that charge different
prices to customers based on a myriad of
factors, such as where they live, or even
whether they use a Mac or a PC.
Transport companies provide another
interesting use case for connected data.
Instead of simply offering peak and off-
peak pricing, they can introduce a far more
granular, segmented model. Customers can
see the cost of catching a train, and the
savings that can be made by waiting half
an hour for the next one. They can also see
the relative real-time costs of alternative
transport to the same destination, and
perhaps decide to take a bus rather than a
train. They have the ability to make informed,
value-based judgments on the form of travel
that will best suit their requirements.

Impacts and Implications
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Use Not Collection
I believe the best approach
to future proof access to big
data is to ensure there is
agreement around its use, not
its collection. Governments
should define a core
reference dataset designed
strategically to identify and
combine the data that is most
effective in driving social and
economic gain.
Such dynamic systems will provide greater
visibility of loading and so allow the use
of variable pricing to nudge passengers
into making alternative choices that can
improve the efficiency of the overall network.
Benefits all round. That said, although
there may be innocuous reasons for price
discrimination, there are currently few
safeguards to ensure that the technology
does not perpetuate unfair approaches.
Open access to data is reaping its own
rewards. London’s Datastore makes
information available on everything from
crime statistics to tube delays to, as their
website states, “encourage the masses of
technical talent that we have in London to
transform rows of text and numbers into
apps, websites or mobile products which
people can actually find useful.” Many are
taking up the challenge, and are delivering
real social benefits. A professor at UCL, for
example, has mapped how many people
enter and exit Tube stations, and how this
has changed over time. This information has
now been used by Transport for London to
improve the system.
Looking ahead, I believe the best approach to
future-proof access to big data is to ensure
there is agreement around its use, not its
collection. Governments should define a core
reference dataset, designed to strategically
identify and combine the data that is most
effective in driving social and economic gain.
This will then become the backbone of public
sector information, making it possible for
other organisations to discover innovative
applications for information that were never
considered when it was collected.
This approach has the potential for huge
societal benefit. The shorter-term economic
advantages of open data clearly outweigh
the potential costs. A recent Deloitte analysis
quantifies the direct value of public sector
information in Britain at around £1.8bn, with
wider social and economic benefits taking
that up to around £6.8bn. Even though these
estimates are undoubtedly conservative, they
are quite compelling.
And yet, at the same time individuals need to
be protected. There are instances where, for
very good reasons,‘open’ cannot be applied
in its widest context. I therefore suggest we
acknowledge a spectrum of uses and degrees
of openness.
For example, with health data, access even
to pseudonymous case level data should
be limited to approved, legitimate parties
whose use can be tracked (and against whom
penalties for misuse can be applied). Access
should also be limited to secure sandbox
technologies that give access to researchers
in a controlled way, while respecting the
privacy of individuals and the confidential
nature of data. Under these conditions, we
can create access that spans the whole
health system, more quickly and to more
practitioners, than is currently the case. The
result: We gain the benefits of ‘open’ but
without a significant increase of risk.
Nor should we consider ‘free’ (that is, at
marginal cost) to be the only condition, which
maximises the value of public information.
There may be some particular cases when
greater benefits accrue to the public with
an appropriate charge. Finally, as big data
unquestionably increases the potential of
government power to accrue un-checked,
rules and regulations should be put in
place to restrict data mining for national
security purposes.
We will also have to look to how we focus
resources within academia. The massive
increase in the volume of data generated,
its varied structure and high rate at which
it flows, have led to the development of a
new branch of science – data science. Many
existing businesses will have to engage with
big data to survive. But unless we improve
our base of high-level skills, few will have

6
the capacity to create new approaches and
methodologies that are simple orders of
magnitude better than what went before.
We should invest in developing real-time,
scalable machine learning algorithms for the
analysis of large data sets, to provide users
with the information to understand their
behavior and make informed decisions
We should of course strive for an increased
shift in capital allocations by governments
and companies to support the development
of efficient energy supply and robust
infrastructure. These investments can prepare
us for serving continued growth in world
productivity – and help offset the increasing
risk for the massive, destructive disruptions in
the system that will inevitably, come with our
growing dependency on data and
data storage.
Innovation in storage capabilities should
also be considered. Take legacy innovation,
for example. The clever people at CERN
use good old-fashioned magnetic tape to
store their data, arguing that it has four
advantages over hard disks for the long-
term preservation of data: Speed (extracting
data from tape is about four times as fast as
reading from a hard disk). Reliability (when a
tape snaps, it can be spliced back together;
when a terabyte hard disk fails, all the data
is lost). Energy conservation (tapes don’t
need power to preserve data held on them).
Security (if the 50 petabytes of data in CERN’s
data centre was stored on a disk, a hacker
could delete it all in minutes; to delete the
same amount from the organisation’s tapes
would take years).
The key thing to remember is that numbers,
even lots of numbers, simply cannot
speak for themselves. In order to make
proper sense of them we need people who
understand them and their impact on the
world we live in. To do this we need to
massively spread academia vertically and
horizontally, engaging globally at all levels,
from universities to government to places of
work. The current semi-fractured structure
of academia is actually an advantage;
it will help us ensure plurality of ideas
and approaches. Remember, we’re not
just playing with numbers; we’re dealing
with fundamental human behaviors. We
need philosophers and artists as well as
mathematicians, and we must allow them to
collectively develop the consensus.
If we get it right, over the next 10 years I
would expect to see individuals being more
comfortable with living in the metaphorical
glass house, allowing their personal
information to be widely accessible in return
for the understanding that it will enable
them to enjoy a richer, more ‘attuned’ life. I
would also expect to see a maturing of our
individual data usage, a coming of age with
regards to appreciating and integrating data
and less of a fascination at its very existence.
We will also perhaps see a new segment
appearing, those who elect to reduce their
data noise by avoiding needless posts of
photos of their lunch and such.
We will also see a structural shift in
employment, markets and economies as
the focus in maturing economies continues
to shift away from manufacturing and
production and toward a new tier of data-
enabled jobs and businesses. As we demand
more from our data, we will need to match
it with a skilled workforce that can better
exploit the information available.
After all the noise perhaps it would be wise
to remember that big data, like all research,
is not a crystal ball and statisticians are not
fortune tellers. More information, and the
increasing ability to analyse it, simply allows
us to be less wrong. I believe that we will
have continued growth in world productivity,
probably accelerating over the next ten
years, even as the risk for massive destructive
disruptions in the system increases. There
will be huge challenges and even dangers,
but I am confident we will be the better for it.
Every time humans have faced a bigger crisis,
they have emerged stronger. Although we
can’t be sure that this will always be the case,
now is the time to be bold and ambitious.
Living in Glass Houses
If we get it right, over
the next 10 years I would
expect to see individuals
being more comfortable
to metaphorically ‘live in a
glass house’, allowing their
personal information to be
widely accessible in return
for the understanding that
this enables them to enjoy a
richer, more ‘attuned’ life as
a result.

CEO and Co-Founder of YouGov plc
Lead expert on the Future of Data.
Stephan Shakespeare is CEO and Co-Founder
of YouGov plc. One of the pioneers of Internet
research, Stephan has been the driving force
behind YouGov’s innovation-led strategy.
Stephan is a regular commentator on current
affairs and business issues. He writes a
weekly column for City A.M. and is regular
contributor to Daily Politics. In 2012, Stephan
was appointed by the UK Government to
chair the Data Strategy Board, a ministerial
advisory board. Shortly thereafter, Stephan
was asked by the UK Government to lead
an independent review into the growth
opportunities of, and how to widen access
to, the wealth of information held by the
public sector; the Shakespeare Review was
published in May 2013.
Lead Expert – Stephan Shakespeare
7

In an increasingly interconnected, complex
and uncertain world, many organisations
are looking for a better understanding
of how the future may unfold. To do this
successfully, many companies, institutions
and governments are working to improve
their use of strategic foresight in order to
anticipate emerging issues and prepare for
new opportunities.
Experience shows that change often occurs
at the intersection of different disciplines,
industries or challenges. This means that
views of the future that focus on one sector
alone have limited relevance in today’s world.
In order to have real value, foresight needs
to bring together multiple informed and
credible views of emerging change to form
a coherent picture of the world ahead. The
Future Agenda programme aims to do this
by providing a global platform for collective
thought and innovation discussions.
Get Involved
To discuss the future agenda programme and
potential participation please contact:
Dr.Tim Jones
Programme Director
Future Agenda
84 Brook Street, London. W1K 5EH
+44 203 0088 141 +44 780 1755 054
tim.jones@futureagenda.org
@futureagenda
The Future Agenda is the world’s largest open
foresight initiative. It was created in 2009 to
bring together views on the future from many
leading organizations. Building on expert
perspectives that addressed everything from
the future of health to the future of money,
over 1500 organizations debated the big
issues and emerging challenges for the next
decade. Sponsored globally by Vodafone
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Additional online interaction connected over
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from these discussions was shared via the
futureagenda.org website.
The success of the first Future Agenda
Programme stimulated several organizations
to ask that it should be repeated. Therefore
this second programme is running
throughout 2015 looking at key changes
in the world by 2025. Following a similar
approach to the first project, Future Agenda
2.0 builds on the initial success and adds
extra features, such as providing more
workshops in more countries to gain an
even wider input and enable regional
differences to be explored. There is also
a specific focus on the next generation
including collaborating with educational
organizations to engage future leaders. There
is a more refined use of social networks
to share insights and earlier link-ups with
global media organizations to ensure wider
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rather than having a single global sponsor,
this time multiple hosts are owning specific
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Context – Why Foresight?
8
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