https://openstandard.mozilla.org/critics-say-big-data-may-discriminate/
On one hand, big data can be used to predict the risk of homelessness, increase diversity in the workplace and improve the chances of preventing the outbreak of a virus. But alarmingly, big data also has the potential to discriminate against already-struggling Americans, minorities and the elderly.
"To target people and to take advantage of certain populations with risky and dangerous products like payday loans just perpetuates these sorts of exploitative tactics that these institutions are already using," said Adi Kamdar of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties group based in San Francisco.
It's not so much that these groups are more gullible than other Americans, but that they often lack access to alternative forms of credit and sometimes find themselves in desperate situations.
The FTC recently revealed that data brokers collect and store billions of data elements covering nearly every U.S. consumer. Just one data broker held information on more than 1.4 billion consumer transactions and 700 billion data elements, while another added more than 3 billion new data points to its database each month, according to the findings. One data broker alone had 3,000 data segments for nearly every U.S. consumer.
