Big Data, Big Leagues

Big data reached a new plateau in public consciousness recently.  Cheap data storage and analytics mean that our behavior can now be tracked and correlated in remarkably fine-grained ways.  That's already being done for security reasons on computer networks, and in the hunt for terrorists, but it's been controversial.  Privacy groups are using the creepiness factor to fight such uses.  

But big data is going to lose a lot of its creepiness now that it turns out to be a key tool in ... judging basketball players.

The technology was originally developed to track missiles. Now, SportVU systems hang from the catwalks of 10 NBA arenas, tiny webcams that silently track each player as they shoot, pass, and run across the court, recording each and every move 25 times a second. SportVU can tell you not just Kevin Durant’s shooting average, but his shooting average after dribbling one vs. two times, or his shooting average with a defender three feet away vs. five feet away. SportVU can actually consider both factors at once, plus take into account who passed him the ball, how many minutes he’d been on the court, and how many miles he’d run that game already. It’s big data in a relatively small pool, and it has the potential to impact everything about basketball, from how it’s coached, to how it’s recruited--even to how we calculate a player’s worth.

It's a very cool tool. Big data can create maps that show where a player is on the court when he typically shoots -- and where he is when he actually makes his shots.

Here Fast Company shows where Kevin Durant is when he shoots:

And here, it shows the much more limited set of locations from which he reliably sinks the ball:

In Europe, of course, this tool would have to survive scrutiny under the data protection directive. (What could be more personal than a camera that follows you around the court and records your every move?) Under the directive, fans would be denied the chance to do this kind of deep analysis of their team's performance -- unless each player consented to the collection of this personal data, and to the use of such data to evaluate the player's performance.  He'd even have to be given the right to "correct" the data if it didn't accurately reflect his performance.

Comments

[Banana Republic]

An interesting thought. But didn't those very same NBA players AGREE to have their data tracked in such a manner (or at least have a camera follow them), and are in fact paid to have that camera go behind them? Perhaps under a contract? Because very few of those who are tracked by "Big Data" companies had given their consent beforehand. You make a compelling argument for an opt-in system where internet users can agree to have their information tracked- not for tracking itself.

I do not know about the European directive, but are you sure it would apply to, say, tracking where soccer players kick the ball versus when the kick results in a goal? And if not, could it be solved by a simple contractual change?

[Stewart Baker]

Yes, I think you could rewrite NBA contracts to obtain consent. But what a pointless pain in the neck. Whenever I point out the serious friction costs imposed by EU-style privacy laws, someone argues that, properly understood and lawyered, a reasonable result can be achieved despite the language of those laws. That's often true, but it turns what should be a simple human interaction into a three-cornered relationship, with a data protection authority able to intervene at will. i don't think we improve our lives when ordinary living requires more lawyers and more government permission.

[Banana Republic]

Somewhat fair, although I do not think preventing the NBA players from having that say in the first place is all that great an idea in the first place. I'm actually a little surprised that the NBA contracts didn't have consent in their in the first place if only because of legal concerns and prevent any possible pains in the neck. In that way you can maintain a two-member contract between the NBA (who has consent through contracts) and the media companies. The "lawyer count" would remain somewhat the same, unless you banned companies from picking up "stalking" rights in the same way companies can obtain the copyrights of musicians and artists (for instance: just as DC, not the creators of Superman, still hold the rights over Superman, the NBA would maintain the "rights" over "tracking" a collection of players like Kobe Bryant).

Furthermore, a basketball player knows he is going to be "tracked" to make cool camera angles while the average guy on the net does not want facebook tracking their Internet habits without any form of consent whatsoever and with no legal recourse. That's an argument for rewriting the directive to properly handle the problem, not for warrantless and recourseless tracking.