Figuring out how to effectively and ethically harness data and then make use of it continues to be of primary concern to enterprises  as new offerings in cognitive computing present fresh opportunities for even the most well-established industries.

“IoT has been around for a long time; my favorite example is smart meters that utility companies use,” said Vijay Vijayasankar (pictured, left), vice president and service line leader of digital transformation, Communications Sector, at IBM Global Business Services.

Vijayasankar and Cortnie Abercrombie (pictured, right), cognitive and analytics offerings leader, Global Business Services, at IBM Corp., spoke to Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick) and Peter Burris (@plburris), co-hosts of theCUBE, from SiliconANGLE Media’s Palo Alto studio, during the event. (*Disclosure below.)

Owning and ethically managing IoT data

There are two aspects to IoT: the instrumentation side, which involves putting the sensors in and getting the data, and the insights side, which makes sense of what the data is telling us. Vijayasankar pointed out that this convergence is the big value with today’s cognitive systems, as APIs have the ability to learn as they go; eventually, they will not need human interaction to run.

There are ethical ramifications to the huge amount of data that gets pulled in via IoT. Who owns it? How is it handled today? And how will it be handled in the future?

“[At IBM], we think about data ethics … when we talk to our clients; that’s one of the things we try to bring to the table,” said Abercrombie.

There’s a difference between the provider and the client in terms of who owns the data. IBM strongly believes the client owns the data, so the company takes care not to jeopardize client data. IBM provides the framework, but all the learning that Watson performs is on top of the client’s data, and it stays local to the client, Abercrombie explained.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Chief Data Officer Strategy Summit. (*Disclosure: IBM and other companies sponsor some IBM CDO Strategy Summit segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither IBM nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE