With great power comes great responsibility. The big data movement gave us tools to gather and process huge amounts of data. Recent incidents show that these opportunities come with a cost. Concentrating heaps of personal information in one place threatens people's privacy. More is not always better - or to be clear: more is sometimes quiet dangerous. This talk explores ways to deal with this situation. The concept of Datensparsamkeit introduces a mindset everybody can take away from this conference into the real world.

1. XConf 2 0 1 4
DATENSPARSAMKEIT
Michael Fait - @mfait

2. <script src="tracking.js"/>

3. respawn_all_cookies(user_id);

4. {
"name": "Michael Fait",
"email": "mfait@thoughtworks.com",
"twitter": "@mfait",
"birthday": "1979-04-26"
}

5. 7.2T user.data

6. ./start-hadoop

7. mysqldump accounts

8. def datensparsamkeit

9. require ‘sparsamkeit.rb’

10. 0 rows in set (0.00 sec)

11. if (user.phone) {
// ?
}

12. /retarget?segment=DKA1PX

13. +------+
| Null |
+------+
| YES |
+------+

14. 4.3G user-profiles.csv

15. 1b192609b92fbc8ce64cf03f6ead1f2d

16. git init

17. ~/piwik/install.sh

18. 0 results found.

19. git commit -m “minor refactoring”

20. filter what-s-really-needed |
filter what-users-allow |
anonymise |
decentralise

21. ./go.sh

22. XConf 2 0 1 4
DATENSPARSAMKEIT
Michael Fait - @mfait