3 Big Ethical & Social Challenges With Big Data

"Big Data presents several potential ethical and social challenges"

Hey guys welcome back to my blog. In this one I'm going to discuss the above statement. Yes there are many positives to big data for companies. There's a reason why the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Apple and many more use big data to give themselves a competitive advantage. It undoubtedly helps these businesses improve their products and services and ultimately helps improve sales through personalization. It can even be an extremely advantageous tool in medical care as it can advance research at a greater pace. This all sounds good, so what's the catch?

Social & Ethical Issues

1. There has to be consent with the collection of big data. Organisations have to respect peoples autonomy when it comes to big data. The problem lies in the fact that a lot of the time people don't even know what they are consenting to. How this problem can be alleviated is by fully informing the owners of the data of what they are agreeing to so they are capable of making a well-informed decision.

2. Privacy is another challenge that comes with Big Data. It can threaten our fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data (Fair Information Principles). Some threats to privacy with Big Data include potential data breaches that could leak sensitive information, the inclusion of bias with the collected data, discrimination based on data insights and much more.

3. Just further expanding on the two points of discrimination and enhancing bias. These are serious potential threats that come with big data. Big data can inadvertently create disparities. It can help over represented populations while not giving this same help to under represented populations and in some cases even harming these populations. This occurs when the data is collected from a single group. This being based on race, ethnicity, gender and class. With this information then algorithms (which are prominent with big data) are going to create biased conclusions.

Those using Big Data must remember that "With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility"