Will Privacy Controls Affect the Accuracy of Big Data?

Big data is essentially large and complex sets of data collated from different sources. Today, due to the prevalence of social media, data on social media users also constitute big data.

Since big data is primarily mined for profit and sold to businesses or organizations who use this information to make plans and decisions in product development, innovation, and marketing or advertising, among others, this means they have access to social media users’ personal information. This raises privacy concerns. Therefore, a major question about big data and privacy is whether privacy controls would affect the accuracy of big data.

A survey involving panelist scholars who are knowledgeable about big data and privacy show that the majority disagree with this statement: “Concern over consumer privacy will fundamentally limit businesses’ ability to use big data.” The panelists also offer three reasons why privacy will not present problems for organizations relying on big data:

1. Privacy controls will encourage more social media users to share personal information.
2. If social media users opt out of sharing personal information, this does not limit their contributions to big data. Users may still share information about their behaviors as consumers, for instance, without sharing personal details.
3. Big data does not only constitute information protected by privacy.

The reasons presented by trusted scholars above answer the question. So will privacy controls affect the accuracy of big data? Short answer is no. Privacy controls may affect the accuracy of big data only in terms of users’ private information but this will not significantly affect the accuracy of data primarily used by organizations. Businesses and organizations may still continue to use big data even when social media users protect their personal information.