Advancement in technology introduced us to a greater space that can store all the data that can help in research, marketing, production, customization of products, and also to study the regular behaviours of the market called Big Data Analytics. The introduction of big data has been helping many organizations to improve their businesses. Companies like Coca-Cola and other large companies use this to improve their data bank and also to analyze the market along with the economic conditions. So, the availability of such large data, which also includes personal details and preferences of a person, is posing a potential threat to the privacy of data. In whatever form the data is stored, either encrypted or otherwise, it is still a big threat, as in the present time data is the biggest asset. In consequence, a balance is required between the innovation and the privacy of data to make sure it is not misused. At present, the utmost concern is to maintain the data properly and to regulate strict rules regarding its usage and collection.
What is Big Data?
Big data refers to the extremely large data sets stored for analysis and research by organizations. These data sets include comments, posts and likes in the case of social media and in case of IOT, all the data stored is about weather conditions, traffic conditions etc.
What is Data Privacy?
Data privacy is about the protection of personal information from unauthorized access, usage and modification without the consent of the individual. It helps to have control over one’s own personal information.
What do you mean by Big Data Analytics?
Big Data Analytics is a complex process to reveal the hidden details, patterns, inferences, preferences and market trends from large data sets collected from various sources. This requires highly advanced technologies, and it also requires data analysis, statistical analysis and many other skills to extract the useful data from raw data collected. It requires advanced technologies and equipment to store and maintain such high-storage data.
Need and Importance of Big Data Analytics
This technology leverages the companies to have real-time data, helping them to make better and improved decisions to improve their businesses. Big data analytics give access to excess information about the present market trends and preferences of the consumers, aiding companies to produce their products and do marketing accordingly. This technology is indeed required to keep up in this competitive world and stand ahead. This helps in making the inside operations more efficient and run the company in a smoother way without any hustles.
Sources of Big data:
Types of Big Data Analytics:
There are four kinds of big data analytics.
Descriptive analysis: This is the simpler analytic form, where it just summarizes and describes about the performance. It provides insight about the business performance.
Diagnostic analysis answers the questions of why and how it happened and tends to find the reasons for the occurrence of such things. For example it helps in finding the reason behind sudden reduction in sales.
Predictive analysis talks about the future course of action and the measures to be taken in the upcoming time. By comparing the present and past details about the performance, we can take the measures to improve in the future.
Prescriptive analysis is solution-oriented. It helps in finding the solution to the problem. It recommends various solutions according to the issues, as per the rules.
Application and its uses :
Tracking customer preferences: This is mostly used by retail seller apps like Amazon, Flipkart, and Walmart, where they keep a track of their customer spending habits, including the things in their cart and the goods on which time spent in surfing. They recommend all such products and its related information that includes any offers or discounts available.Such information also benefits the banking sector, where they keep record of all these data and recommend discounts and offers through their credit and debit cards.
GPS system: Apps like OLA, Uber and others get the details of traffic real-time data as the cameras on the roads and satellites work together to maintain such data.
Personal Assistants in Appliances: Devices like Alexa and Siri, all these collect every minute details of the person that can help them in understanding the person. According to a few reports, they also record the data when they are not in use. All such data is used to make their experience more personal and handy to use giving them a luxurious feeling.
Education: Due to COVID, online classes have increased and this oppurtunity is used by various companies like Bjyus, Vedantu and Unacademy where they provide notes for various topics as free website and then try to get the details of the students whoever visit the website. They offer them various courses according to other data collected through their emails, mobile number and browsing history, making it more reliable for students to get enrolled.
Social Media apps: Apps like Instagram and YouTube also keep the track of the content being seen, and its related content is recommended. They have the largest datasets as they keep track of a lot of information within the apps that includes each and every user details from their personal information to what they browse, how much time they spend on such apps all these details are available with them.
Healthcare: The data about the history of the patient, present condition, complications and medicine present used and the appointment dates, their life insurances etc.
These all help in making enhanced decisions and better decisions regarding improving business through the collection of data, which can give the customer a special feeling of being treated as a special person.
Effect of Big Data on Data Privacy:
One of the main concerns of using big data is threat to data privacy and protection of every individual. The description of big data analytics is all about the collection, tracking and analysis of personal data of individuals with or without their knowledge, which is a big threat as the information collected can be used in any way. Usually, data collection is in itself a threat as no one is aware of its usage and such information is not even publicised. And no strict rules are there to make sure that once the usage of the data is done it should be deleted immediately. This makes the scenario worse. As threats are always around such collection.
Some of the threats posed to data privacy are:
The biggest nightmare is misuse of personal data in various forms that can include identity theft, usage of personal images for blackmail, and usage of photos in other forms, especially for women.
The usage of chats and other information related to the bank details, credit card details, OTPs and other sensitive data. This gives hackers and thieves a big opportunity to take all the money in the accounts, which also includes fraud in the name of the bank or government. Credit card scams and frauds can be done even by a click on link with the present technology.
Selling of personal and sensitive data that is stored on various devices in any form is a very big business in the present time, especially in the dark web, on which taking of control by any regulations is very tough. This is called Data Brokerage.
Data breaches where the sensitive information is being accessed without any authorization by hacking, in the form of a privacy policy with implied conditions, weak passwords etc.
Since the data consists of details of age, gender and preferences, targeted marketing can also be a problem where few organizations may target a specific age group, especially teens, to attract over illegal things or unethical things. This is a trap that is tough to come out of once trapped, especially adolescents, his is called Data Discrimination.
Leakage of such private data can increase exposure to credit card frauds, schemes and cyberattacks as the majority of the information is already with them.
It is also a type of online stalking where every activity of ours is recorded and monitored, and the presence of such information infringes the right to privacy of every individual.
As these tools are linked with AI, which provides deeper insights into such collections, AI can even predict the next step and the decision a person will take. This also tends to create discrimination in employment, in debt, and in providing insurance. This is also part of Data Discrimination.
Target marketing is one of the consequences of such data collection. As per the websites visited and content being watched, pop-ups and advertisements are provided.
One of the main concerns is that most of the individuals have no knowledge that their data is being collected and tracked, so their lack of knowledge is hindering them from protecting their data.
Such collection of data lacks transparency and also breaches all the privacy policies of privacy.
And also, the retention of such large data sets for a longer period will be a tough job, and also the security regarding such data also weakens as the time passes, which can be misused.
Measures can be taken as an individuals:
Whatever precautions and regulations are made for the above-mentioned threats, as individuals, it is also our responsibility also to protect our data from being misused. Even though many regulations regarding this are made but as the saying goes prevention is better than cure, we should take our preventive measures to protect ourselves. Some of the simple measures taken by us in simple steps can avoid greater trouble.
Using a good virtual private network can help in changing the original IP address with some other IP addresses. Which keeps the details of the device and the details of individuals in secrecy and can browse the internet securely.
The most important measure is to have basic knowledge and understanding of the data collection and other things related to it. This knowledge can make individuals conscious when they are providing consent to any website and also while providing any of their details.
Setting up stronger passwords which are tough to guess through our data provided online,
There is another option where individuals can request the organization, like Google, to send a copy of data related to us and also can request the deletion or correction of such data.
There is also a website called Delete me, that requests that larger organizations to delete our data from them.
Should be very careful while giving consent or access to any privacy policy or cookies while visiting a website.
The Google chrome, Mozilla Firefox all these web browsers come with all privacy settings which need to be set accordingly especially to pop ups and also off the trackers and adblockers.
The browsing data and all the cache need to be deleted from time to time to keep it clearer and not to track everything.
Be careful while providing the details into logging into accounts.
All the accounts not in use or used only in longer times need to be logged out from time to time.
Conclusion
Big data Analytics is very much useful for business to provide customer centric services and to provide the best product satisfaction. Under the disguise of providing personalization of products a very big scam of collecting data is being done by all the companies. This data being used for various illegal works like data breaches, frauds and targeted advertising. These are the direct threats to every individual and as whole to society. So, the laws and regulations need to be stricter for organizations especially. It is all about to gain more knowledge and to spread awareness regarding such data collection and usage along with the preventive measures which can be taken.
REFERENCES:
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Written By: Sunkara Bhuvaneswari
Guided By: Advocate Jaanvi Sharma