Big Ethics for Big Data

As the collection, organization and retention of data has become commonplace in modern business, the ethical implications behind big data have also grown in importance. Who really owns this information? Who is ultimately responsible for maintaining it? What are the privacy issues and obligations? What uses of technology are ethical — or not — when it comes to big data?

These are the questions authors Kord Davis (@kordindex) and Doug Patterson (@dep923) address in "Ethics of Big Data." In the following interview, the two share thoughts about the evolution of the term "big data," ethics in the era of massive information gathering, and the new technologies that raise their concerns for the big data ecosystem...