Challenges to representing the population from new forms of consumer data

Guy Lansley,James Cheshire

doi:10.1111/gec3.12374

Abstract

AbstractA large share of human activity is now routinely captured and stored by commercial organisations as consumer data. These new forms of data have provided many new and exciting opportunities for understanding population trends at fine spatial scales. In many settings, they have reduced our dependence on theory and traditional modelling approaches and fundamentally changed how geographers approach producing representations of the population. However, consumer data are typically created for commercial benefit and do not have academic standard data quality controls, and so, in repurposing the data for social research, we encounter inherent issues of veracity. Without an understanding of uncertainty, social scientists can risk overstretching consumer datasets beyond the specific populations or phenomena they directly pertain to. Moreover, the technical characteristics of large and complex datasets also make it challenging to generate valid information efficiently. Therefore, this paper reviews the major challenges to harnessing consumer data to produce valid spatial representations of the population at large.

Highlights

A substantial—and increasing—range of human activity is being captured and stored digitally by commercial organisations as consumer data (OECD, 2013). Much of these data contain spatial attributes, which include references to locations that either assist in the identification of customers or delivery of products, or, through new technologies that enable the precise detection of coordinates
All benefit from technological innovations that facilitate their collection, storage, and analysis, and they contribute to a wealth of new data available encompassed by the term “Big Data.”
Efforts to gain access to commercial data for research purposes are motivated by an increasingly acknowledged necessity to broaden the base of possible data sources for social research since traditional sources of data—such as surveys— are costly to administer and in many cases suffering from decreasing response rates

Summary

Introduction

A substantial—and increasing—range of human activity is being captured and stored digitally by commercial organisations as consumer data (OECD, 2013). Whilst we remain optimistic about the value of such data, this paper discusses some of the challenges to producing representative population research with spatial data routinely collected by commercial organisations. 2 | LARGE CONSUMER DATASETS AND THEORY IN GEOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Results

Conclusion