Data Managers Have Great Responsibility, Says Buzzfeed Vice President

Data managers and organizations that handle large amounts of data have great responsibility, said Thursday Gilad Lotan, vice president and head of data science at Buzzfeed. "As a professional in the field, I'm seeing a concerning trend in the U.S.," he said, speaking at Calcalist’s Mind the Tech conference in New York.

Buzzfeed is a full-on data company, Lotan explained. In his role, he recently took on a challenge to see how easily "anonymized" location data such as data generated by Google maps users can be used to gain specific information about specific people. He managed to gain information about what shops the person frequented, what their children do, and even what type of bank account they have.

At Buzzfeed, Lotan said, they built a variety of worse case scenarios to handle a potential data leak, and also work to educate their audience about potential harm.