Author: Andrej Zwitter
Publisher: SAGE Journals
Publication Year: 2014
Summary: The following article states two main reasons why ethical practices involving Big Data are increasingly becoming more important. Big Data is much more organic; since it typically arises from the granular activity on the internet, it is of the truest form. It is also potentially global, as the point where it is being collected is mostly in the hands of large corporations. Because of the volume and velocity of such data, scientists often let algorithms search for correlations themselves. In consequence, despite the data being anonymous in the sense of being de-individualized, groups are always becoming more transparent. Even if the personally identifiable information is stripped from the data, there is a risk of “group identification” that is overlooked in such cases. If algorithms are let loose, they can potentially be used to target groups of users, either for virtually harmless schemes like targeted marketing or potentially impactful objectives like swaying the votes in favor of a party. When it comes to Big Data ethics, it seems not to be an overstatement to say that Big Data does have strong effects on assumptions about individual responsibility and power distributions.