Ethical and Social Implications of Big Data Analytics in Decision Making Processes

Abstract

The Big Data analytics has transformed how decisions are arrived at in most industries by facilitating the capabilities to process large quantity of data within a limited period of time and obtain insights, predictions and arrive at decisions. Though all of these innovations are yielding positive outcomes in increasing efficiency, evidence-based policymaking, and innovation, there exist severe ethical and social consequences as well. The most notable ones are the atmosphere of privacy erosion, algorithm bias, absence of transparency and lack of accountability, the surveillance threat, and the heightened social disparities. Through the frames of public policy, business strategies, the health care and the police, with regard to the ethical and social perspective, this paper critically reviews the ethical and social challenges of the decision-making perspective of the responsible data usage through review of structures and governance mechanisms of the responsible data usage. The interdisciplinary synthesis of scholarship in the research results in the identification of the requirements/recommendations to the ethical guidelines, regulatory supervision and inclusive practice required to provide fairness, accountability and respect to the individual rights in the age of big data.