| | may 20148CIOReviewopinionin myBuilding an Ethical Big Data PracticeAs Big Data becomes further entrenched as a mainstream challenge germane to organizations both large and small, much of the industry discussion continues to revolve around two critical business needs--the need to find more effective ways to manage the explosion of data and data types, and the need to better capitalize on the opportunity this proliferation affords to make smarter, more insightful decisions. Amid this justifiable fixation, however, another critical need is often overlooked: The need to build an ethical Big Data practice, one with proper sensitivity to the privacy concerns of customers. The ethics of Big Data is a complicated subject, with much of the complexity stemming from the vagaries inherent within the concept of privacy itself. What exactly is privacy, and more importantly, what are an individual's rights to privacy? The boundaries of privacy differ across cultures, and while it's generally understood that individuals are entitled to some level of privacy, the question of whose responsibility it is to protect that privacy has no single, clearly definable answer. The issue becomes even murkier when dealing with the nuances of information exchanged between customer and business. In some cases, namely with data disclosed to service providers such as doctors and lawyers, the onus has always been on the receiver to protect the privacy of that information. In the case of customer-business relationships that are more transactional in nature, however, such as with a retailer, the protection of private information has historically been seen as the responsibility of the discloser. If people don't want information exposed to a given business, they simply shouldn't provide those details in the course of their dealings with that business. There was a time in which that concept made sense. In the Big Data era, however, that's no longer the case. Digital information is f luid, its exchange is simple, and its distribution is instantaneous, global, and increasingly essential. Anyone in marketing will attest to the importance By Matt Wolken, VP & GM, Information Management Products, Dell Software
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