The Ethical and Social Challenges of Big Data

Hi everyone!

I hope you all found my last blog on Trailhead Salesforce useful and informative. 

This weeks discussion is about what the ethical and social challenges big data brings about. For my blog this week I reviewed a book chapter called 'The Big Data World: Benefits Threats and Ethical Challenges' by Borimida (2022). This article was extremely useful and very insightful, I have attached the link for the chapter below for you to look at also. 

After learning about what big data was this week, I was intrigued to see what complications it can bring about. Although it is very useful for organisations such as Netflix, it has raised concerns regarding social and ethical standards. 

So what is 'Big Data'?

Big data is large volumes of complex data sets that are too big to be processed by traditional processing software, but these large volumes of data can be very useful for organisations to address problems that they may not have been able to before (Oracle, 2023). 

Big data consists of a greater variety, increased volume, more velocity, higher value and larger veracity, which are know as the five V's. 

The Ethical Challenges

After reading Borimida's (2022) chapter on the big data world, I quickly saw the concern of ethical boundaries being crossed. Due to how large the volume of data is of sensitive data for example, consent may not be received before the data is collected and people may feel that they are being watched because of their data being constantly collected and processed.  

The Social Challenges

Borimida (2022) also provided useful insights regarding social challenges which interested me. One concern that caught my eye was discrimination of data mining technologies. For example, profiling- based discrimination and associated privacy issues, by focusing on factors like home addresses and deceiving less informed people with harmful offers (Borimida, 2022). 

I hope this weeks blog piques your interest about what big data is, how useful it can be for organisations but also how it can create social and ethical challenges. 

Rachel 

                    

Link for book chapter: *Ethical Issues in Covert, Security and Surveillance Research (emerald.com)