Era of big data

Abstract

We live in a world of data collection where organizations and marketers know our income, our credit rating and history, our love life, race, ethnicity, religion, interests, travel history and plans, hobbies, health concerns, spending habits and millions of other data points about our private lives. This data, mined for our behaviors, habits, likes and dislikes, is referred to as the "creep factor" of big data [1]. It is estimated that data generated worldwide will be 1.3 zettabytes (ZB) by 2016. The rise of computational power plus cheaper and faster devices to capture, collect, store and process data, translates into the "datafication" of society [4]. This paper will examine a side effect of datafication: discrimination.