In its simplest form, Big Data identifies a large volume of data points and sets that are combined from a variety of sources, making its analysis more time-consuming and difficult to extract meaningful information from. Large technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, use these data sets to improve internal processes and decision making. The decision-making ranges from tailored advertisements to global or local market trends to more complex and invasive procedures like unlocking search history and using parameters to track location.
While big data analytics is often portrayed in a negative light due to privacy protections, its benefits span across various fields, including finance, healthcare, software development, consumer products, and more. Search engines like Google, for instance, take data in the form of cookies, something like a username or a password to help enhance your experience on that given website.
Information, data, and cookies are tracked by the website or search engines you use every single day. While a scary thought, the data is crucial for maintenance and efficiency challenges. Without its prevalence in our day-to-day lives, every single error or online crash would take hours, maybe days, for IT personnel to solve the issue instead of minutes. Moreover, the data you use while online shopping and browsing the news helps to provide products that will improve your life by personalization.
That keyboard you were thinking of buying but lost the link? Thank big data for it popping up on your Amazon recommended. The high-quality dog food brand that Fido needs for his arthritis? Thank big data for hundreds of recommendations in seconds instead of searching aimlessly through a catalog. The data, though, is protected through a multitude of laws and standards that must be followed strictly, lest the website face massive legal fees and challenges.
Government agencies and personal privacy informants advocate for the improvement of privacy measures under the Fourth Amendment and discuss the dangers of releasing crucial information online. These critics are not unfounded, as big data sources are a constant aim for hackers and security breaches.
Capital One, for instance, had a breach of over 100 million customers, allowing hackers access to financial records. As the tech market expands and the usage of big data improves, though, cybersecurity will improve, giving customers the ability to use online services with peace of mind. Big data revolves around people using it around the clock, and with more exposure, the more the technology can learn on its own, protecting consumers and producers alike.
Our online information is protected by legislation and the improvement of big data in the next decade serves to improve our connectivity and efficiency across all fields. Personal information, though, relies on the user.
Large-scale hacks are inevitable, and thus consumers should use different passwords and security code logins for each website so that they can reap the benefits of personalization and increased speeds without having the security risk of shared information across the web. Big data is the key to both online security and online optimization, and its improvement continues day by day.