Ethical Treatment of Big Data

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Ethical Treatment of Big Data "Analytics holds dramatic potential to fuel innovation and economic growth. To realize that potential it will be necessary to address the data protection and privacy issues that the use of analytics raises. The risks to individual privacy must be solved so organizations will be able to use technologies and new sources of data for analytics robustly and with confidence. The Centre's project will create the clear guidance that mitigates against the risks raised by analytics but does not impede their use," -Paula Bruening, Vice President Global Public Policy for the Centre for Information Policy Leadership. Big data and the use of analytics are a rising trend within the business world. “$34 billion dollars is estimated to be spent on information technology worldwide focused on big data and analytics.” There is a reason for those expenses; the inherent value of information. Businesses today use big data for a plethora of reasons, but it all comes down to seeing the information of a company and its employees and using that to improve areas of the business. Monitoring employee production, sales information, employee turnover, etc. are all uses of big data throughout the corporate landscape. Using reporting and analytical programs, companies can take that data and adjust their compensation, hiring rates, pricing structure, and so much more. In seeing all this information, at some point businesses will begin to cross a line of privacy concern and ethics. As technology is becoming more prevalent to the everyday worker and monitoring software is able to see more and more of an employee’s personal information, when does big data become more of a liability within the corporate environment. A happy work-life balance is integral for each and every employee, but limiting their privileges and monitoring their every move can be stifling. Opening
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