PfPC Background Paper- “Big Data” and Emerging Security Challenges: Issues Facing Decision Makers
This background paper examines policy issues associated with emerging security challenges arising from the impact of big data on areas of societal importance and offers considerations for response.
There is no single accepted definition for big data. However, the term generally represents high-volume, high-velocity, high-variety information assets which demand cost-effective innovative forms of information processing designed to achieve enhanced insight and decision making2. Medical research, healthcare, innovative business practices, and urban analyses are just a few areas showing promise of novel opportunities resulting from advances in big data. These advances come from new ways of gathering, storing and handling big data as well as new tools and means for analyzing data and extracting information.
Emerging security challenges also arise from not only the recent rapid developments in big data but also from the anticipated promise of continued advances. Security of data, data integrity and data storage are continuing challenges for the research and policy communities as well as for those charged with building networks of data storage facilities and managing associated risks. Privacy protection for individuals and institutions is a major issue of policy concern not readily solved by technical means. As computing power increases, energy consumption grows. Users capitalize on increasingly sophisticated means with which to access data repositories and to analyze the increasing amounts of data stored.
Not well understood is the local and regional impact of such consumption on the environment and economy. Also not well understood is the susceptibility of local and regional economies to intentional or unintentional destruction of major data centers known. New institutional arrangements, new partnerships, and new roles and responsibilities among various sectors (business, government, academia, others) and among the international community are needed to maximize opportunities coming from big data, as well as to effectively address the associated emerging security challenges.
