Ever wonder how big data firms are using your social media data?

The Psychometrics Center at the University of Cambridge (not to be confused with Cambridge Analytica) is promoting awareness of how your social media data can be used against you:

Apply Magic Sauce is a non-profit academic research project coordinated by the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre. The demos and platforms available here are a modest attempt to reverse the trend in Big Data and empower citizens to not only retain control of their data but also derive meaningful insight from it.

We build analytics tools that you can use on your own data to see how others see you, and we collect anonymous opt-in datasets to advance scientific enquiry into online behavior, digital footprint analysis and artificial intelligence. We believe in the power of academia for real-world impact and care not about identifying you personally, but providing you with tools to individualise your own experience.

Check out their Apple Magic Sauce demo. They show you what types of psychological profiles big data firms can build from your social media data and allow you to “use on your own data to see how others see you”. It is equally fascinating and terrifying.