Big Brother is Always Watching You!!

Hi guys and welcome back to my blog. 

 

So, I’m guessing you have clicked on this vlog for a run down on the revamped ''Big Brother'' series that is currently airing on Virgin Media. Unfortunately, that is not what this is. However, there are many similarities between the ‘’Big Brother'' tv programme and the ethical and social threats of big data.

 

Just like in the Big Brother house that runs surveillance on housemates 24/7, big data also runs surveillance on you every time you use technology. 

 

In real life, people value their privacy. But are people as careful online? Remember that newsletter you signed up to last week for 10% off your H&M order? Well, just from that simple interaction H&M now have access to your email, address, viewing history, transactions and the device you used to do all of this on. You will now continue to see H&M ads on every one of your social media sites and your email will be plagued with marketing emails. 

 

Big data is now impeding on people’s privacy and companies are building algorithms based on their activity in order to maximise their organisations profit. People are intrusting companies with their most personal information that could be easily hacked if security is weak. In 2021, the HSE experienced a cyber attacked and all patients’ medical records were accessed by hackers, therefore compromising peoples most personal information. The problem with gathering all of this personal information from people is that big data can misinterpret information and give companies false and misleading information. Therefore, leading organisations to make poor decision’s which could be detrimental to the business. 

 

Big data is also costly to store. Data is stored in warehouses that are not only extremely expensive to operate, but also have negative environmental effects. These warehouses have thousands of machines running 24 hours a day and they tend to overheat so companies have to have fans running constantly in order to cool the systems. 

 

All in all, I feel big data is potentially dangerous to people’s privacy, the data that is being collected could potentially be biased and expensive to store which also impacting the environment negatively.

 

Let me know in the comment section below your opinion on big data.

Hope to see you next week. By for now!!