Sid Lee Paris and Ubisoft Reveal What Big Data Says About Us with 'Predictive World'

Every day, we create 2.5 billion gigabytes of data, from our online purchases to our Facebook likes. But do we know what this data says about us?  

On November 10th, Sid Lee Paris and Ubisoft reveal “Predictive World”, an interactive digital experience with an advanced virtual system that predicts users’ profiles based on their digital footprint. The exploratory site was developed to promote the much-awaited release of WATCH_DOGS 2 in which big data plays a key role. In the game, hero Marcus Holloway is wrongly profiled as a potential criminal by a city-wide operating system collecting and analysing data on every citizen.  

Predictive World was built based on a sophisticated algorithm developed by the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre using open data resources to generate highly accurate individual predictions. Collecting and processing users’ online footprints, the system is able to predict a range of over 70 personal attributes.  A core element of the experience is its interactivity.

Thanks to over 6.4 billion data points collected, users can modify variables to evaluate their impact: how changes in location, age, gender, height, alcohol consumption and more could impact their life expectancy, the risk of being killed in a car crash, the odds of getting married, or even their income.  

Predictive World and WATCH_DOGS 2 are strong reminders that in today’s ultra-connected world, the systematic collection and processing of private data on a massive scale marks a new step in an era of rising surveillance. Predictive World lets users imagine how corporations, governments, or criminals could use their personal data against them, and help players understand the context of the game.