Wayne T. Price

FLORIDA TODAY

Are you ready for a phenomenon that's both fascinating and scary? Welcome to "big data" - a topic that quickly has become a fixation with academics, entrepreneurs and others tracking high-tech trends.

The fascinating part: Companies are keeping massive amounts of near real-time data about individuals. It could be their travel habits, what they're buying at the grocery store, the music they're listening to and the books and news articles they're reading.

The scary part: Big data is seen by some as a cleaver that could whack at individual privacy.

"The No. 1 concern is privacy then related to that is security vulnerabilities," said Scott Tilley, a professor in the Department of Education and Interdisciplinary Studies at Florida Institute of Technology, where he is director of computing education. Tilley also is a co-founder of a group called "Big Data Florida" which is establishing itself as the go-to clearinghouse in the Sunshine State on the subject.

Tilley, who also is a regular columnist for FLORIDA TODAY, added, "Many people don't really realize how much of their own personal information they're giving up to companies like Facebook."

Storing data and using it as a predictive tool is nothing new. Insurance companies are known to keep actuarial tables to predict things like mortality rates, illnesses and driving infractions.

With the birth of the information age that data - and much more - became digitized. What's relatively new is the capacity to collect and almost instantaneously analyze massive of amounts of data. It can be used to predict behavior and nudge you to make a certain decision.

Think about making a purchase on Amazon or watching a TV show on Netflix. Those companies will almost instantly make suggestions based on what you just watched or bought.

"This was not something that was possible, even 10 years ago," Tilley said. "Computers weren't fast enough and computer storage units weren't large enough to this. Now we can do it in almost real time."

Contact Price at 321-242-3658 or wprice@floridatoday.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @Fla2dayBiz.