Quote Originally Posted by spoonful View Post
Which is why this ridiculous idea has zero validity. Data that has no validity is just noise. Just another bunch of so called "IT Professionals" trying to flog a "Public Health" measure to gullible politicians who then try to foist it on the public to make it look like they are doing something "advanced" and "high tech". The idea behind this is to aid in contact tracing, good luck with that!

I wish I'd thought of the Covid Safe app. I'd be a million bucks (or 5) richer with very little responsibility for ongoing support and maintenance (except to keep billing the government for it), which is what will happen with this bit of fluff.
Data with no immediate validity or context is actually termed fact. Its the representation of a transaction in its simplest form. Add some dimensions to that, throw in some aggregations and what you have is the basis of an analytical model. Data mining or its latest iteration, machine learning, is the process of feeding / training a system to find patterns and anamolies amongst huge volumes of data and react to certain events. With more human intervention in looking for insights, born is the era of data-driven decisions. Ever wondered why items commonly bought together in a supermarket are relatively close together? That's determined by purchasing patterns, based off millions of receipts, not hunches. I've been in this field for 20+ years, the real life applications of this are extremely far reaching.