Cornell professor: Individuals should mine their own data for health purposes

Individuals should mine their own data for health related purposes, according to Deborah Estrin, a computer science professor from Cornell University who spoke at this week's TEDMED conference in Washington, D.C., Clinical Innovation+Technology reports.

"We are continually generating digital breadcrumbs, and those breadcrumbs together form digital traces," Estrin told an audience on April 17. She added that social networks, search engines, mobile operators, online games and e-commerce sites all aggregate "small data", but no services are considering the value of returning this information back to the consumer.

"Changes are often subtle, but it does play out in day-to-day behaviors," Estrin said. "We need to liberate the data back to us, the user. Let's get our search engines and mobile carriers to package data for us." Article