Big Data Week

Ok, since last week was people week, and the week before was a general "Government in the Electronic World". I figure I should dedicate this week to another pressing topic in government. Big Data.

Ok this isn't exactly big data, but i'll still pray to the cloud gods

Big data, in terms that we view it in public administration (and hopefully in other fields as well), is split up into two areas, these being "Big Data" and "Surveillance". David Lyon in his article separates the differences between these two by calling big data:

"The capacity to search, aggregate and cross-reference large data sets"(Lyon, 2014)

He further goes on to state that this definition of course is not the same depending on the area it is applied, as similar ends to success differentiate between the view of the context it is currently under (such as terrorism, marketing, health care, etc.) (Lyon, 2014). 

Surveillance on the other hand is used as the:

 "Systematic, routine, and focused attention to personal details for a given purposes (such as management, influence, or entitlement" (Lyon, 2014)

This too is rather broad and can depend on the present purpose it is being used for and how exactly it is being used, yet for a "basic" understanding, it is what it is.

Why these two definitions are rather important to e-government and the understanding of their definitions, is due to the work that both can help and harm those affected by the collection of data. The use of the 311 system (which I will talk about in another blog post) as well as the debate vs mass surveillance, or scrutiny towards individuals. Big data can also fall into the issue of intellectual property law, which has created a ground of interesting debate on "who exactly owns" this data outright?

As you can see from these definitions and previous examples, the use of big data and surveillance in government is rather daunting. It's spread being extremely complex and can be rife with consequences (Snowden leaks of NSA surveillance, being an example). I figured this would be an interesting topic to cover for this week's class due to our focus on intellectual property, and the rights one may or may not have on the web (specifically with interactions to web 2.0 tools) towards this data (it's the best I can do at least comparing it to e-government at least, please don't hate me going the boring route!).

The road of big data and government is not one in which it is constant "conspiracy theories" yet at the same time, we should be mindful of what exactly we give out as "information" on the digital web, and at least know what we blatantly give out "for free". 

Sources:

Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1-13.