Big Data Analytics and Ethical Issues

This assignment delves into the realm of big data analytics, focusing on the critical aspect of ethical considerations. It highlights the need for data professionals to use information effectively without breaching privacy or security protocols. The document provides a framework for identifying and analyzing major issues in implementing big data and data analytics, with specific references to case studies like Cambridge Analytica - Facebook.

REPORT -Privacy/Security
Issues Report for the
Victorian Privacy
Commissioner project

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Issues of privacy.....................................................................................................................1
Discussing privacy issues in relation to the Cambridge Analytical case...............................1
Ethical issues and Analytics...................................................................................................3
Application of analytic techniques in the
Cambridge Analytical case discussed ethical issues.............................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Applying big data to analytics can help the organisations to solve many of the data
dependent management and operational issues. Various potential users are not sure precisely
about the big data analytics and the way to use it for the business advantage. In order to make the
right decisions, adopters of the data requires guidance on the usage of big data based on reliable
information. Therefore, the study covers privacy issues that arises in big data analytics and the
problems such as Privacy Breaches and embarrassments Anonymization could even possible
Data masking can be defeated in order to reveal personal information, Unethical actions which
are based on interpretations has been discussed with the case study of Cambridge Analytica.
INTRODUCTION
The term data analytics is defined as the process of analysing and compiling large data
from different sources such as IP addresses, e-mails, log files etc. various organisations uses the
data analytics for intelligence in security to identified threats, verify the alerts and different
events of security to neutralise the effect of cyber attack. There is a scope of analytics to
historical data with the current data set to identified various norms of threats such as frauds,
anomalies etc. The huge volume of data today is the result of digitalisation. The data is termed as
big data when it is used by various organisations in extracting information related to make the
marketing decisions, tracking the attack or the track specific behaviours.
Issues of privacy
These issues are linked with all the attributes of managing the personal information of
individuals. Privacy risks carries the potential consequences for both the parties whether it is
individual or agencies. The identification of risk processes can also be used to identify the
opportunities to increase the management of personal information (Hashem and Khan 2015).
Privacy concerns are those concerns which exist at the place of uniquely identifiable data relating
to an individual or group of persons collected and stored, in digital or in any other form. In
different cases these concerns can be refereed on the way of data collection, storing and
association.
Discussing privacy issues in relation to the Cambridge Analytical case.
Following mentioned are the big analytics problems:
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 Privacy Breaches and embarrassments- The decisions made by the organisations is a
result of big analytics of data may be a breach of privacy between those who are
involved, leads to embarrassments and sometimes the loss of jobs. This problem can be
explained with help of case of Cambridge Analytica, against whom the warrant has been
sought in order to inspect the company. There is an acquisition on the company that it has
used the personal data and information of 50 million Facebook member in order to
influence the presidential election of US in the year 2016. The company has used the
data analysis at bigger level to predict the intimation of personal details. The executive of
the company has been channelised suggesting the ways to use honey traps and potential
bribers in order to discrete the politicians. Furthermore, after doing this big crime, the
entity totally denies anything wrong done by it. Privacy breach comes into picture when
subsequent marketing activities have been resulted in involvement of any family member
who can even discovered as pregnant before confessing it to anyone which ultimately
results in the damage of family image in an uncomfortable situation (Kambatla and
Grama 2014). The same has been reflected in the case of Cambridge Analytica as when
the CEO of Facebook was ready to give the summoned information with the evidence,
meanwhile Damian Collins MP, who was leading the inquiry for the committee has laid
the fake news accusing Facebook for giving misleading answer and not given Mark
Zuckerberg any chance to prove Facebook a right platform for social networking. There
has been a total negligence of Facebook in the case.
 Anonymization could even possible- For Such a large data with powerful analytics it
becomes impossible to track the individual or group of people committed the crime, if in
case there will be no rules to establish the use of anonymised files. Like in the case of
Cambridge also there was anonymisation in the form of honey traps of information from
one data to the another one with totally separate databases. In one way the CEO of
Cambridge Analytica was suggesting the ways to target an individual and in other there
was suggestion of tactics to discredit the politicians online. The important aspect of this
issue is deciding the amount of data which can be used to establish the rules and policies
which can be combined together and usage can be made easy (Patil and Seshadri, 2014).
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 Data masking can be defeated in order to reveal personal information- If there is no
proper data overlapping or masking then it is very easy to identify the individual whose
data has been masked. It is must for the organisation to introduce the effective policies,
rules and procedures in order to use the data for ensuring the preserve of privacy. Big
data analytics is a new concept to the organisations, therefore it is difficult to realise the
risk and data masking becomes a breach of privacy. There are various resources available
to the organisations for giving the guidance related to data masking for big data analytics.
 Unethical actions which are based on interpretations- Big data analytics has been used
to influence the behaviours. There are many ethical issues with the influential behaviour.
In the case of Cambridge Analytica, the influential behaviour has been recorded. The
CEO of the company has suggesting that they can send some Ukrainian girls to the
candidate's house in order to influence them and should be recorded clearly in the
camera. Next suggestion made by the individual in the case was that they can provide the
data and insights to drive the voters to the specific polls and then the party will be able to
win the elections. It is a cheaper form and can be effectively used by the organisations for
big data to make the wider business decisions that do not involve human life (Riggins and
Wamba 2015). There is a potential to reveal the personal information because it is an
illegal form but even can damage the life of people for which it must be considered.
Ethical issues and Analytics
The data analytics is useful tool for gaining data for the use by the company. It is required
that it should be used in accordance to ethics (Gesicho, Moon, Heitman and Were, 2017). The
same can be observed in Cambridge Analytical case where company was being accused to use
50 million Facebook members and accused of influencing US presidential election which was
held in 2016. It is required that ethical issues should be followed and privacy should not be
breached without the consent of members and as such, company should maintain its members'
privacy in the best possible manner. The ethical issues in relation to Cambridge Analytical –
Facebook case can be listed below-
 Beneficial to society-
The data analytical issues which was observed in Cambridge Analytica should have been
controlled so that no allegations could have prevailed. Moreover, it is required that data ethics
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should be followed and business may be able to provide benefit to the society. However, due to
crime done in relation to data breach which was done to influence political situation in the
country was not an appropriate way (Corbeil, Corbeil and Khan, 2017). This had led to face legal
lawsuits to the company for breaching data privacy by anonymously using Facebook members
information and allegations were made. Hence, it is required that firm should follow ethics so as
to eliminate legal suits.
 Honest attitude-
Data transparency should be there and customers should be asked whether they could
provide information about them which could be used effectively to attain requirements in
effectual way. For convincing people, it is required to provide them clarity regarding purpose of
obtaining data. This would have dual benefits to data analytics firm as on one hand, it may get
desired data and on the other hand, privacy may not be harmed in any way leading to better
transparency. Hence, allegations cannot be made as prior permission is taken from customers and
it has been used judiciously to meet the objective in effectual manner (Amirian, Lang, van
Loggerenberg, Thomas and Peeling, 2017).
 Professionals are accountable-
Data analysts of Cambridge Analytica are under the duty to effectively handle the
operations in that manner so that data should be used judiciously and should not go in wrong
hands and as such, they are personally liable and other actions which might prevail due to
wrongdoings. This means that data is required to be utilised and no breach of privacy may be
made which may lend business into trouble.
 Respectful-
It is essentially needed that data should not affect individual's interest and in analysing
data which is originated from any way. It is required that data privacy should be there so that
firm may be not breach information regarding the privacy. Furthermore, it is needed that
company should not gain undue advantage of the information and should not be breached. The
information generated should be utilised in accordance to objective in a better way for which it
was taken with permission of customers.
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Application of analytic techniques in the
Cambridge Analytical case discussed ethical issues
The application of above techniques can be made in effective manner. The applicability
can be useful for not only to the firm but also to the society as no bad deeds with information
could be made. It can be applied in the society by taking permission and consult with the people
so as to provide them with data security and privacy and as such, it would be fruitful for the
company as firm could effectively carry out purpose of taking data (Axtell and et.al, 2018). It
can be applied by discussing with members so that Cambridge Analytica case may not happen
and firm may be able to attain data with much ease. The firm was accused of using data
anonymously and as such, it was found guilty by Privacy Commissioner of UK as it is a political
consulting firm.
On the other hand, it is required that professionals and data analysts should be
accountable so that no information may be leaked and breach of data may take place. Hence, it is
essentially needed that firm should integrate information collected and should take care that it
may not be breached as it may inculcate bad consequences and even lawsuits may be made and
company could be alleged to such case. Data should be met with all decisions taken by the
management so that objective of organisation could be achieved and as a result, organisation
may be able to accomplish goals in the best possible manner (Saltz, 2018). It can be said that
such application of ethical issues in data analytics could be made and data can be achieved in a
better way.
CONCLUSION
Hereby it can be concluded that data analytics is a crucial task which need to be
effectively meet by organisation so as to explore about the data and adequate information may be
garnered in a better way. Moreover, as the privacy and ethical issues discussed in relation to the
case of Cambridge Analytica – Facebook, it is required that information should not be breached
and privacy is the main concern for the company and is needed that it may not use information
without concerning with people. Ethical issues should be resolved and applied in the business by
which it may be able to carry out perfect analysis and further, data professionals are under the
duty to use the data in effective way without breaching the same.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Amirian, P., Lang, T., van Loggerenberg, F., Thomas, A. and Peeling, R., 2017. Big Data
Analytics for Extracting Disease Surveillance Information: An Untapped Opportunity.
In Big Data in Healthcare (pp. 59-83). Springer, Cham.
Axtell, C., Sprigg, C., Wessels, B., Pinfield, S. and Taylor, M., 2018. Big Data and Employee
Wellbeing: Findings from a Seminar Series. Academy of Management Global Proceedings,
(2018), p.39.
Corbeil, M. E., Corbeil, J. R. and Khan, B. H., 2017. A Framework for Identifying and
Analyzing Major Issues in Implementing Big Data and Data Analytics in E-Learning:
Introduction to Special Issue on Big Data and Data Analytics.Educational Technology,
pp.3-9.
Gesicho, M. B., Moon, T. D., Heitman, E. and Were, M. C., 2017. Ethical Issues in
Implementing National-Level Health Data Warehouses in Developing Countries. Studies in
health technology and informatics, 245, pp.718-722.
Hashem, I.A.T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N.B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A. and Khan, S.U., 2015. The rise
of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information Systems.
47. pp.98-115.
Kambatla, K., Kollias, G., Kumar, V. and Grama, A., 2014. Trends in big data analytics. Journal
of Parallel and Distributed Computing. 74(7). pp.2561-2573.
Patil, H.K. and Seshadri, R., 2014, June. Big data security and privacy issues in healthcare. In
Big Data (BigData Congress), 2014 IEEE International Congress on. (pp. 762-765). IEEE.
Riggins, F.J. and Wamba, S.F., 2015, January. Research directions on the adoption, usage, and
impact of the internet of things through the use of big data analytics. In System Sciences
(HICSS). 2015 48th Hawaii International Conference on. (pp. 1531-1540). IEEE.
Saltz, J. S., 2018, July. A Framework to Explore Ethical Issues When Using Big Data Analytics
on the Future Networked Internet of Things. In International Conference on Future
Network Systems and Security (pp. 49-60). Springer, Cham.
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Online
Scott. 2014 Ethical issues in Data Analytics [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.izenda.com/blog/ethical-issues-in-data-analytics/>
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