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Jason Moon
CST 300 Writing Lab
21 September 2019
Regulation of Big Data

Since Datafication became the major trend in the social network for both companies and

users, the constructed and unconstructed data have surged into the Big Data environment. With

the rapid growth of the demand in leveraging Big Data analytics, major companies have focused

on the trend of customers and expanded their interests in the adoption of Big Data technology

and the scope of the development of the data infrastructure. Big Data technology has remarkably

become a powerful method for both businesses and users in collecting, storing, and analyzing

data. Geoffrey Moore stated that “Without Big Data analytics, companies are blind and deaf,

wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway” (Czarnas, 2017). While the technology and

applications underlying Big Data made a positive impact in every field, concerns have been

raised in “needs to be a fundamental change in getting personal information for the right

purposes and showing the customer the value of that data exchange” (Divatia, 2019).

The earliest records of the application in analyzing and controlling data for business

activities were found thousands of years ago. Since Roger Mougalas coined the term Big Data,

Big Data has been one of the most innovated technologies and exponentially advanced “in

biological and environmental research, sensory technology, software and mobile data logs, social

networks, military surveillance, and e-commerce, to name a few” (Weatherly, n.d.). Hadoop was

created later in 2005 to handle structured and unstructured data in the Big Data system. With the

rapid evolution of Big Data, this technology has become more sophisticated and started

encountering challenges from data privacy, security, and discrimination. To protect users’ data

from these issues, the Big Data regulation became the main agenda among software companies

and users, and the government has been asked to establish transparent regulation. However,
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businesses and developers oppose the Big Data regulation to retain their strategies in pursuing

their interests and growing their businesses from the advantage of using Big Data.

While Big Data technology has accommodated to our needs in collecting, storing, and

analyzing data, this technology has received extensive attention, and the question has been

asked; Should the Big Data technology be regulated? There are two groups of stakeholders in

this argument. Users and the government support the regulation, whereas businesses and

developers oppose it.

According to the viewpoints of users and the government, data contains sensitive and

confidential information such as customer information, financial statements, and health statuses.

The meaningful information can easily be identified and exposed from data by Big Data

analytics while their use cases involve sensitive data. Therefore, data should be carefully treated

as a valuable asset. Without proper management on leveraging Big Data technology, valuable

data will be ruined by data privacy, security, and discrimination issues during accessing and

storing process. For example, personal data can be easily exposed to businesses without the

agreement, breached by criminals for illegal purposes, and analyzed to classifying users with

discrimination for healthcare and housing. Users and the government claim that the policy should

be established to regulate Big Data system to protect data from these issues. Claims of policy

support the adoption of policies and assert that the course of action, which is the Big Data

regulation, should be established to resolve these issues. Big Data regulation will promote the

secure data environment with data privacy, security, and fairness for users and their worthy

information.

On the other hand, according to the perspectives of businesses and developers, data is a

coupling medium to provide the environment. While Big Data technology has been progressed,
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businesses and developers have delivered outstanding software applications and provided better

data services. They resulted in career and business growth. Therefore, for their side, improving

Big Data technology is a fundamental and important job to do. They claim that the Big Data

regulation will restrict their role and hold their back from moving forward. This will limit the

interests and rights of businesses and developers for Big Data development. Claims of cause

defend their situation about being penalized from that Big Data regulation. Businesses and

developers believe that it will impact software industries and various fields, and their interests

and efforts in innovating the Big Data system will be infringed. They will also have fewer

opportunities for Big Data development. The employment rate of the software engineers will be

decreased and it will be hard to find experienced software engineers.

To represent the viewpoint of users and the government, Utilitarianism is a good ethical

framework to advocate the perspective of users and the government on the regulation of the Big

Data system. Utilitarianism was developed by British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John

Stuart Mill. “Bentham and Mill were both important theorists and social reformers. Their theory

has had a major impact both on philosophical work in moral theory and on approaches to

economic, political, and social policy” (Nathanson, n.d.). Although Utilitarianism has criticized

by many researchers about not representing minority groups, it is still one of the well-known

ethical theories, and many thinkers still support it. Utilitarianism “advocates actions that promote

overall happiness or pleasure and rejects actions that cause unhappiness or harm” (Kenton,

2018). This ethical theory also considers the action as ethically correct when the greatest benefits

are received by the greatest number of people. Like Consequentialism, Utilitarianism only

focuses on consequences produced by actions. They are ethically correct if they produce good

results.
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Personal data is important for users because it contains every information related to them.

Without the regulation in employing Big Data, thousands of users will be directly or indirectly

jeopardized by multiple issues. Breaches will continue to happen on a massive scale as

companies collect data on millions of people and fail to protect them properly. With the benefit

from many conveniences, the Big Data environment rapidly absorbs personal data exposed by

IoTs. Spreading personal data increases privacy risk. It also allows businesses to discriminate

against users based on personal data such as credit scores and health information. Users and the

government believe that Big Data should be regulated although the regulation will cause

downtime in technology growth. Utilitarianism acknowledges that moral practice producing a

better outcome for the greatest number of people is ethically correct. From the Utilitarian

approach, Big Data regulation is the ethical action for the greatest number of users to promote a

safe and fair environment for users as consequences.

To support the viewpoint of businesses and developers, Rights theory is the appropriate

ethical framework to represent their perspective. John Locke, who was a British philosopher,

developed Rights theory during the seventeenth century. He maintained that natural rights

mandate such as life and liberty are given from the laws of nature, and should not be harmed by

others. Thomas Jefferson enshrined three foundational rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit

of happiness and applied Rights theory in the United States Declaration of Independence. Rights

theory states that we have a moral duty with respect for the rights of others and also have a moral

right with “justified claim against another person's behavior” (Fieser, n.d.). Rights theory focuses

on ethical behavior and decision rather than the outcome or consequences. If the action respects

the rights of others, it is ethically correct. Rights and duties are closely related to each other for

the mandatory action to earn respect from the other person.

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As personal information data has been the fuel propelling the economy today, Big Data

technology has been rapidly grown with the vitalization of social networking and data access.

Acceding the demands and standards with high-quality data service is the obligation of

businesses and developers, they have provided fast and convenient data services in the Big Data

system. Earning profits and expanding the technical knowledge from the development are their

rights, and they have fulfilled their needs and objectives of growing businesses and careers.

Regulating Big Data means restricting their duties to respect users and limiting their rights to

transform inventive ideas for technology. Rights theory promotes any moral actions and interests

respecting users. According to Rights theory, the action that limits moral rights and duties from

businesses and developers is not ethically correct. With Big Data restriction, businesses and

developers will lose opportunities to develop Big Data technology and to increase a profit from it

by the data regulation in employing Big Data. Users will pay increased service and subscription

fees, use slower and lower quality services and also be restricted in using personal data by the

data regulation in employing Big Data. Businesses and developers believe that their rights should

be conserved from the restriction and also their moral duties for preparing better data services to

respect users should not be limited.

My position aligns with what users and the government claim. Collecting, storing,

analyzing data in Big Data environment should be regulated. “Big Data technology has

inarguably reinvented nearly every industry, with its power to collect, eternally store and process

infinite quantities of information” (Hayes, 2015), and provided “unprecedented insights and

opportunities across all industries from healthcare to financial to manufacturing and more” for

both groups of stakeholders (Marr, 2017). However, the more powerful the technology for them,

the more perilous the technology for them. Without the Big Data regulation, massive personal
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data will be exposed to cybercriminals for illegal trade in the dark web, and data breaches will be

placed within the Big Data system and secretly entrap and amass personal data. Companies have

been allowed to discriminate users by analyzing and classifying data in healthcare, employment,

and more fields.

To build a safe data-driven environment, the government should be a regulatory reformer

to protect vulnerable users and data against insecure data surroundings and to empower users to

control data in Big Data environment. With impartiality and trustworthiness of decision-making,

the government should be the central adjuster for monitoring data flow in Big Data environment

and the peacemaker to intervene in any dispute between users and businesses. Businesses and

developers will take advantage of the effectiveness of the latest technologies such as Big Data

with limited regulation. Businesses will be encouraged to create new business models with

respecting consumer empowerment, and developers will expand their knowledge on technology

development with achieving a balance in regulation and innovation. Users will enjoy consuming

data services with the supervision of the government and the agreement with businesses. This

recommendation will truly fulfill the obligation that Utilitarianism has propagated; the greatest

amount of good to the greatest number of people.

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References

Czarnas, P. (2017, November 23). Big Data and Analytics: Two Key Components for Business

Growth. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@avenewmedia/big-data-and-

analytics-two-key-components-for-business-growth-deee0726e338

Divatia, A. (2019). GDPR And The 'Security By Compliance' Mistake. Forbes. Retrieved from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/07/02/gdpr-and-the-security-by-

compliance-mistake/#59fffadeecc4

Fieser, J. (n.d.). Ethics. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://www.

iep.utm.edu/ethics/

Hayes, W. (2015, September 14). The Dark Side Of Big Data. Forbes. Retrieved from

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhayes/2015/09/14/the-dark-side-of-big-

data/#27fa646c3d1d

Kenton, W. (2018, March 13). Utilitarianism Defined. Investopedia. Retrieved from https://

www.investopedia.com/terms/u/utilitarianism.asp

Marr, B. (2017, June 15). 3 Massive Big Data Problems Everyone Should Know About. Forbes.

Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/06/15/3-massive-big-

data-problems-everyone-should-know-about/#7963dd286186

Nathanson, S. (n.d.). Act and Rule Utilitarianism. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/

Washington, E. (2019, April 26). Technically Speaking, What Is Data Governance? DZone.

Retrieved from https://dzone.com/articles/technically-speaking-what-is-data-governance

Weatherly, J. (n.d.). The Utilitarian Side of Big Data. Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired

.com/insights/2013/01/the-utilitarian-side-of-big-data/