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3 TheEthical IssuesofLearningAnalytics… 45 victory for commercial interestsoverpersonalprivacy.Today the scaleofdataheld by LotusMarketplace, and the threat of increased junk mail which it presented, both seem insignificant. The supermarketswherewe shop (Rowley, 2007) and the websiteswhichwevisit (Evans,2009)holdandexchangevastlymoredetaileddata aboutusthanLotuscouldhavedreamedof.TherevelationsofSnowdon(Greenwald, 2014)have shown that governments have secretlydevelopedvast infrastructures to monitor and analyze the communications of individuals.CambridgeAnalytica, the firmaccusedofharvestingmillionsof people’s data fromFacebook, “saidpublicly thatitheldupto5000datapointsoneachofover230millionAmericanvoters.”(Mr. JusticeNorris,2019).While thiscaseendedinlitigation,noeffectiveoppositionhas emergedtothegatheringofdataonamassivescalebyprivatecompanies,anditsuse inmarketing,advertisingandpolitics.Similarly,within thefieldofLAtheInBloom analytics initiativewasclosedfollowingapublic reaction to intrusivedatagathering (Bulger,McCormick&Pitcan,2017),but thishasnotslowedthegrowthofthefield. Zuboff (2019) argues that Google has taken a leading role in these develop- ments andprovides a detailed analysis of the strategy establishedbyGoogleChief EconomistHalVariantoleveragethedatagatheredbythecompany.By2014Varian wasconfident enough toassert that thesenewprocedureswithprivate andpersonal datahadbecomeacceptedpractice rather thanamatter fordiscussion: ‘There is no putting the genie back in the bottle…Everyone will expect to be tracked andmonitored, since the advantages, in termsof convenience, safety, and services,will be so great…continuousmonitoringwill be the norm (Varian,H, quoted in PEWResearch (2014)). Zuboffherselfhaspainteda lessoptimisticviewof thisoutcome: …our lives areunilaterally renderedasdata, expropriated, and repurposed innewformsof socialcontrol, allof it in theserviceofothers’ interestsand in theabsenceofourawareness ormeansofcombat. (Zuboff, 2019,p.54) Zuboff (2019) identifies as ‘surveillance capitalism’ the methods which have driven the expansion of the analysis of personal data since the emergence of the Internet. Itsprincipal actors arecommercialorganisationsandsecurityagencies, its workingsare shrouded in secrecy, and itspurpose is toobtainpersonalororganisa- tional advantage.LA, incontrast, is a self-declaredcommunityofacademicswork- ing towardsanexplicit goalof improvingeducation, andsharing theirmethodsand insights inpublicconferences.Thiscontrastmeansthat theemergenceofLAcannot beexplainedassimplyamanifestationofsurveillancecapitalism.Nevertheless,LA shares someof themethods and assumptions of surveillance capitalism, and these carrywith themassumptionsaboutdatagatheringandusewhichmayshed lighton theethical tanglewhichLAfindsitself in.Theseassumptionswerewellsummarised byBill Schmarzo, chief technical officer ofEMCGlobal Services: “I’mahoarder, I want it all. And even if I don’t yet knowhow I’ll use that data, I want it…My datascience teammightfindausefor it” (Bertolucci,2014). Informedconsent fora specifiedpurpose, is clearlynot compatiblewith suchastrategy. Thechangeswhichhave takenplace in thepracticeof data collection in society havehadasubstantial impactonthemethodologyofthesocialsciences, totheextent