PBS 'Faces' Up to 'Big Data' in Documentary

PBS will debut award-winning one-hour documentary The Human Face of Big Data Feb. 24, the noncom network said Monday.

The info collected from the Internet of Things, and people, has been a big issue of late, with the Federal Trade Commission last week putting out guidelines for the care and handling of personal information in the cloud.

The documentary, which according to PBS has already made the film festival circuit and been tapped by the State Department to air at embassies and consulates the world over, looks at the connections between Big Data and people, including digitizing genomes, global health issues, sustainable cities, and revolutionary movements like the Arab Spring.

PBS calls the Big Data revolution the creation of "a central planetary nervous system in which individuals have become human sensors, helping map and measure the planet while, at the same time, mapping intimate details of the lives of each and every one of us," adding, "[T]here is a very human side to this data that often is overlooked or untold."

The documentary was produced by Against All Odds Productions in association with Luminous Content and CuriosityStream.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.