Researchers from the Institute of Rock Structure & Mechanics began monitoring landslide detachment planes around a potential megalandslide on El Hierro in 2013. The proposed project extends this by building a comprehensive automated deformation monitoring system. These data will be analysed alongside other sources of freely available primary data using the big data paradigm in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of megalandslide dynamics. The results will be supplemented by comprehensive investigations of megalandslides and megalandslide reactivation at both the global and regional scales. Despite the myriad of geophysical datasets which lend themselves to the big data paradigm it is extremely rare for geoscientific research to place data analysis at the heart of a project. Big data focuses on the simultaneous analysis of disparate heterogeneous data and as a result it has a tremendous predictive capacity. The latter allows us to use our data from El Hierro in order to inform discussion about the risks posed by megalandslides on other volcanic islands across the globe.