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Big Data
Date: 2021
From: Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection
Publisher: Gale, a Cengage Company
Document Type: Topic overview
Length: 2,144 words
Content Level: (Level 5)
Lexile Measure: 1500L

Full Text:
Big data refers to the massive amount of information that is created, collected, and analyzed to provide insights into human behavior
and consumer preferences. Big data comes from various sources including computers, smartphones, tablets, wearable technology
devices, social media sites, barcode scanners, and "smart" household devices and appliances such as speakers, thermostats, and
security systems. This network of interconnected devices that communicates and shares data with consumers and vendors via chips,
cameras, voice recognition software, and other sensors without human intervention is often called the internet of things (IoT). Big
data also takes many different forms including voice recordings, satellite images, videos, emails, text messages, customer loyalty
accounts, credit card records, and internet shopping and browsing histories.

The rapid increase in the collection and use of big data beginning in the 2010s has raised questions among US citizens, policy
makers, and advocacy groups. Individuals and civil liberties organizations have expressed concerns regarding the privacy and
security of users' personal information such as Social Security numbers and medical histories. While big data has proved useful
during outbreaks of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, it has also been implicated in online disinformation
campaigns that distributed false or misleading information about the virus, treatments, and vaccination to targeted groups of users.

Main Ideas
Big data refers to the massive amount of information that is created, collected, and analyzed to provide insights into human
behavior and preferences.
Big data comes from many sources, including smartphones and wearable technology, and can take a number of forms, such
as image, video, text, financial transactions, and internet shopping and browsing histories.
Big data emerged alongside technological advances in data storage and retrieval capacity and the development of powerful
tools that use complex equations and algorithms to mine vast quantities and types of information.
Data analysts identify trends and interpret information gleaned from large data sets to solve problems or inform future
decision making. Modern data analytics uses advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Tracking consumer activity is among the most well-known applications of big data; however, new approaches to data
analytics have been seen across sectors and fields including law enforcement, health care, agriculture, and scientific
research.
American consumers, citizens, and workers worry about the security of the data collected from them, who will be able to
access it, and what corporations, governments, and employers will do with the data they collect and analyze.

Advancements in Information Storage

According to communications and technology scholar Martin Hilbert, in 1986 less than 1 percent of the world's mediated information,
or information that is "globally broadcasted, telecommunicated and stored," existed in a digital format—an amount equivalent to
covering every inch of the world's landmass with a double-sided sheet of paper. Digital storage capacity increased by 31 percent
annually over the next three decades, or five times faster than the growth of the world economy. By 2014 more than 99 percent of
mediated information was stored in digital form—an amount equivalent to covering the world's landmass with a knee-deep pile of
125-page books. Installed telecommunications capacity, which includes fixed and mobile telephone and internet services, grew by 35
percent annually during that same period, giving individuals, businesses, and governments easy access to digital data stored on
physical servers or in the cloud, a network of applications and services that are accessible through the Internet.

Improvements in data storage and retrieval capacity would not have had such a revolutionary impact, however, without the
development of powerful tools to mine useful information from the vast quantities of data. Once affordable options for storing big data
became available in the early 2010s, businesses and other organizations were faced with the challenge of how to analyze and gain
insight from this information. In addition to the sheer volume and variety of information available, the unstructured nature of emerging
sources of data made analysis difficult. Instead of analyzing structured data like sales figures or financial statements for trends and
opportunities, the analysis of big data focuses on unstructured data like the content of the hundreds of thousands of tweets posted to
Twitter every minute. Many tech firms have developed or implemented cutting-edge tools that allow real-time analysis of big data by
nonexperts at a reasonable cost.

Data Science and Data Analytics

Data scientists describe big data in terms of four important characteristics: volume, velocity, variety, and veracity. Volume describes
the amount or scale of the data, while velocity describes how quickly it is created and processed. Variety refers to the different types
of data to be analyzed, and veracity refers to the degree of certainty the data is representative and accurate. Big data that is high in
these attributes provides a solid base for decision making.

Data analytics is the use of sophisticated mathematical equations and computer algorithms to interpret large data sets, identify
patterns in disparate types of information, and gain knowledge to solve problems or inform future decisions. Modern data analytics
uses advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and it produces three main types of results:
descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive.

Descriptive analytics interprets historical data to help decision makers understand what happened in the past. Analysis of this data
identifies patterns that occur over time and provides insight into elements of past operations that may affect future outcomes.
Predictive analytics forecasts what might happen in the future. Each potential outcome is attached to a statistical probability, which
allows decision makers to weigh different options and identify emerging trends. Prescriptive analytics uses simulations and
computational modeling to quantify the impact of various potential solutions. The goal of this field is to develop data-supported
recommendations regarding the optimal course of action.

Data analytics are utilized in a wide variety of fields including science, health care, transportation, law enforcement, agriculture, and
space exploration. Law enforcement agencies, for example, employ descriptive analytics to mine data from public records and
identify high-crime areas. This data is then used to inform how agencies choose to deploy officers, theoretically enabling agencies to
deploy officers more effectively in crime prevention efforts. In biological research, scientists used descriptive and predictive analytics
to sequence the human genome and can utilize analytics to track gene interactions. The agricultural sector, meanwhile, uses
information collected from thousands of farmers to maximize crop yields and determine optimal seed density or fertilization amounts.
Analysts at US intelligence agencies employ sophisticated tools to collect and analyze information posted online, looking for
suspicious activity or unusual links between data points that might help uncover terrorist activities and organizations.

Countless commercial businesses use big data analytics to increase sales or improve operations. One of the best-known applications
of big data involves using predictive models to assess customer behavior and predict future purchasing decisions. Companies such
as Amazon and Netflix use analytics to compare a customer's purchase history or viewing activity to those of millions of other users
to generate personalized recommendations, suggest additional items of interest, and target advertisements. Banks and credit card
companies mine data from customer purchasing histories to evaluate credit risk. Airlines use analytics to predict their fleets'
maintenance needs ahead of time and reduce flight delays and cancellations.

Other businesses use data analytics to guide the development of new products and services. Some companies use big data to
forecast future demand for products, improve inventory management, or refine their pricing strategies. Analytics allow some
businesses to visualize markets and find leads or prospects with characteristics similar to those of their existing customer base.
Businesses also utilize analytics to help compare the risks and benefits of alternative courses of action and identify new business
opportunities.

Big data presented a number of applications in responding to the global COVID-19 pandemic, including surveilling the spread of the
virus by tracking information on infections and mortality. Data that logged symptoms, documented travel and transit histories, and
aggregated shared knowledge aided in contact tracing and accelerated the pace of research on treatments and vaccines. Some
organizations used Global Positioning System (GPS) data from people's cell phone records to track movements and predict hotspots,
while others used location data to target public health measures such as social distancing. Some researchers also identified
sentiment analysis—the mining of textual data, often from social media sources, to identify opinions on a topic and categorize
attitudes as positive, negative, or neutral—as a tool to assist public health agencies in designing the most effective public messaging
and in understanding the psychological impact of the pandemic and control measures.

Critical Thinking Questions

Why do you think it is important that big data be high in volume, velocity, variety, and veracity for it to provide a solid base for
decision making? Explain your answer.
In your opinion, for what purposes should employers be permitted to use the data gathered from their workers? Explain your
answer.
How do you encounter the impact of big data in your day-to-day life? Do you consider it to be a positive, negative, or neutral
force in your life? Explain your answer.

Privacy Concerns and Consumer Protections

Some studies suggest Americans are willing to make a tradeoff between giving companies access to their personal data and
receiving rewards or discounts. However, people's willingness to give up privacy has limits and depends on contextual factors such
as the trustworthiness of the organization collecting the data. Other studies indicate instead that citizens want control of their personal
data but feel powerless to prevent it from being collected and used. In a 2019 Pew Research Center poll, for example, over 80
percent of US adults reported feeling very little or no control over data collected by companies (81 percent) and the government (84
percent). In the same survey, nearly two-thirds of US adults indicated it is not possible to go through daily life without companies or
the government collecting data about them.

As data breaches and cyberattacks have become increasingly common in the era of big data, concerns over security have
heightened. According to Risk Based Security, over 1,700 data breaches were publicly reported in the first six months of 2021; in
total, these breaches exposed 18.8 billion records. The health care industry had more data breaches than any other industry in the
first half of 2021. Many citizens worry the personal information they allow organizations to access will fall into the hands of scammers
or hackers. In a 2020 study published by Consumer Reports, 74 percent of respondents indicated being "at least moderately
concerned about the privacy of their personal data." However, though many consumers state they want to control their personal data,
surveys show that many people do not take basic protective steps. Concerned consumers can utilize strong passwords for devices,
delete cookies from Internet browsers, turn off location tracking on smartphones, adjust privacy settings on social media accounts,
and read companies' privacy policies before providing personal information.

Technology ethicists and social justice advocates have expressed concerns that the information revealed through big data analytics
can be used in a discriminatory manner. Predictive analytics might lead a company to deny employment opportunities to people with
certain characteristics, for instance, because they may belong to a group for whom the collected data is already skewed or biased.
Data discrimination poses a particular risk for low-income and underserved populations, who tend to have limited resources and less
access to information.

Companies that use big data must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires fairness and accuracy in data collection
and gives consumers the right to correct errors in their credit history. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits
deceptive business practices, such as selling customers' personal information after promising to keep it private. Federal equal
opportunity laws prohibit discriminatory use of data on the basis of protected characteristics such as age, race, religion, gender, or
disability status. However, many Americans are not confident that corporate cybersecurity practices and US fraud protections provide
adequate security for their data. In Consumer Report's 2020 survey, 96 percent of respondents agreed more action needed to be
taken to protect consumer privacy.

As advances in big data provided new ways of tracking and responding to the viral spread of COVID-19, they also enabled many
employers to transition employees to remote work during shutdowns. While the use of big data to track employee performance
existed prior to the pandemic, it became common across more industries and types of work. Many companies began using tools to
collect and analyze information about how employees were using their time. For instance, employers can gather keyboard and
webcam data on computers they own and gain access to employee email and web browsing histories when using the company's
internet connection. This has led to concerns over employee privacy and the ethics of using surveillance to enforce rigid standards of
productivity. Just as consumers believe more needs to be done to protect their data, workers are increasingly calling for regulations
outlining what employers can and cannot do with the data they collect on their employees.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2021 Gale, a Cengage Company

Source Citation (MLA 9th Edition)
"Big Data." Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2021. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/JSAQXK702543894/OVIC?u=itesmgic&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=9cc36ea1. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021.
Gale Document Number: GALE|JSAQXK702543894