Big Ideas: Big Data for Law

Big data is big news. Did you know an estimated 90 per cent of
the world's data was created in the last two years (see
www.ibm.com/big-data)? Insights gleaned from large datasets are
increasingly driving business innovation and economic growth.
Underpinning this 'big data revolution' is a powerful combination
of low cost cloud computing, open source analytics software and
new research methodologies. These are enabling us to move from
simply storing large sets of data to extracting real value from
them. Big data analysis can now tell us everything from the most
borrowed library books in 2013 to the most overweight areas in
England.


John Sheridan, Head of Legislation Services, introduces the Big
Data for Law project. Why does data matter in law? What are we
doing to transform the legal research? Can you imagine what an
annual 'census' of the statute book might look like and what it
could be used for? If you care about law, how it works and how we
can make legislation clearer and more accessible, this talk is
unmissable.


This event took place as part of Big Ideas, a series of monthly
talks on big ideas coming out of The National Archives' research
programme.