The GDPR Effect on Big Data!

A study by Deloitte found that 61% of businesses found GDPR and its implementation has major benefits such as competitive advantage, business enhancement and improve reputation.

GDPR, a single set of rules created in order to govern as to how personal data is used is done regardless of the source and across all uses. It protects the personal privacy laws pertaining to the data rights of the EU citizens.

GDPR is not restricted to organizations inside the EU alone, on the contrary, any organization with customers in the EU will be affected.

The way companies handle personal data will change forever with the introduction of GDPR. Europe’s data protection rules have undergone a huge change with GDPR being introduced.

GDPR replaced the 1995 Data Protection Directive. The internet is growing at a rapid pace.

Digital content has increased at an unimaginable rate. This has led to loads of personal data being held digitally.

With so much personal data out there, the need for an enhanced data protection regulation arose and hence, GDPR.

What GPR does is, it empowers individuals to gain access and control over the information held on them.

While empowering individuals, GDPR also holds organizations accountable for the way thy handle and store personal data.

Profiling is described by the GDPR as the collection of personal data and its subsequent use to extract information about the data subject.

Processing personal data to assess and predict information about individuals, such as socioeconomic status, demographics, country, digital and physical movement, and more, is known as profiling.

Companies will be required to have the latest documentation and communication when it comes to data protection.

  • In order to meet the GDPR demands, companies will ensure that they build trust and maintain a high level of service.
  • Consent must be received from the customers before the companies can use their data.
  • In the event of a security breach that affects user data, the users must be notified immediately.
  • Users should be allowed to delete personal records that the company has on them.
  • The users should have access to the data collected on them. At the same time, they also have the right to give the data that you have collected to another company.
  • Legal arrangements must be made when data is moved to regions outside the EU.
  • In order to meet the GDPR demands, companies will ensure that they build trust and maintain a high level of service.
  • Consent must be received from the customers before the companies can use their data.
  • In the event of a security breach that affects user data, the users must be notified immediately.

How Advanced Analytics is Shaping Businesses Today:

Irrespective of the size of the business, data is always generated. If a website, a social media presence and a payment gateway exist, data definitely exists. This data can be collected on their customer, webpage navigations, user experience and lot more.

However big or small a company is, the need for big data analytics to analyze its data is a must.

The use of advanced analytics gives you better insights. When the analytics provide you with custom market and business intelligence, the resulting insights will help make informed and better decisions.

Machine performance and human performance can be tracked. Deliver routes can be optimized.

Recruitment can be made simpler. All of this can be done with advanced analytics. Be it any department of any business, operational efficiency is bound to become better with Big Data Analytics.

These are just a few ways as to how analytics is changing the way businesses function.

GDPR has a huge impact on advanced analytics because of the nature of how advanced analytics functions and the data which is collected and analyzed.

When we talk about ‘Big Data’, a large chunk of it comprises of personal data. The use of personal data has a huge impact on data protection, data privacy, individual privacy rights and more so.

These rights are further empowered by GDPR. Does this mean that the end is near for Big Data Analytics? Not really!

GDPR and its related regulations do not aim at confining Big Data Analytics but rather, offer a structure for effective regulation. Big Data Analytics and data protection are objects that can enhance each other rather than stop each other from flourishing.

Not all of big data is personal data and only the personal data part of it is covered by GDPR. Big data analytics like weather data and so on are examples of non-personal data.

For the purpose of analytics, personal data can be anonymized, rendering the data to not come under the data protection regulations.

Keeping that in mind, a lot of big data is personal data. This data can be used individuals directly or with a combination of datasets.

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Therefore, data protection is a must in this space. There are 3 different areas to consider here:

Does the use of the personal data prove to be intrusive to the individual?

The use of people’s data for big data analytics – is it within the scope of what they reasonably anticipate?

The transparency of the organization about how it is processing personal data – how transparent can the organization be?

When we talk about personal data being used for big data analytics, there are a few types of personal data.

It may be ‘new types’ for the analysis which may include ‘observed data’, derived or inferred data’.

New types of data are consciously provided by the user. This type of data can be produced using analytics

In an organization which is big, you may have to trace the path that the data has taken through various systems.

Once the data is acquired by you, what happens to it? How is this data being used and for what purpose? How is the data transformation happening? What processes does this data undergo?

During the time of data collection, you need to know if any consent was asked for and granted. As stated above, under GDPR regulations, consent can be revoked at any point in time.

You must keep track of whether consent has been revoked after being granted. Another key area is to make sure that the analytics model in use can filter out the data for which consent has not been given.

The model at the same time should be adaptive to account changes in consent.

The analytics platform in use should definitely be integrated with the security system of the organization.



Author: Abhimanyu Sundar
Abhimanyu is a sportsman, an avid reader with a massive interest in sports. He is passionate about digital marketing and loves discussions about Big Data.