According to the United Nations, Big Data has plays an essential role in both better measuring the progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the achievement of the goals.
In the private sector, big data analysis is commonplace. Services are being personalised with the help of big data, consumer profiling is largely possible due to big data analytics and big data plays a crucial role in advertising and making predictions in the financial sector. Organisations use this data for internal value creation.
Similar techniques could be used to target aid interventions to vulnerable groups based on insights into people’s wellbeing.
One way to do this is by establishing public-private partnerships. As said in the beginning of this text, most data is collected by the private sector. It will be challenging however, to ensure that these collaborations are sustainable, especially in less developed economies. Clear frameworks and clarifications on roles and expectations on all sides should be put into place to warrant long-term sustainable partnerships.
Another necessary element for this solution to be sustainable is supervision and monitoring. This is one of the key roles of the United Nations. They have set principles and standards to facilitate collective action to enable the safe use of data. These principles mainly focus on openness and transparency to avoid unethical data use. This is important because one of the reasons some parties are hesitant to embrace big data in regards to the SDGs is because of ethical concerns. The opportunities that big data create can only be realised if the fundamental elements of human rights can be safeguarded.
Another objection is that the adoption of big data analytics could potentially cause an increase in inequality and bias. If we only focus on the data we do have, we neglect a major part of the problem. Major gaps are already present between the data we have and the data we do not have. This gap exists because many people are excluded from data and information. The most vulnerable groups are the least likely to leave digital fingerprints. The very reason behind this are the problems we are trying to solve with the SDGs in the first place: poverty, lack of technology infrastructure, lack of education, et cetera.
Data in the private sector is currently collected and analysed for corporate value creation. However, there is a great potential for society as a whole. Especially public-private sector partnerships look promising, although the barriers to the data gap need to be overcome: If Big Data is going to be used on a larger scale to help achieve the SDGs, we first need to build the required capabilities to overcome inequalities between more and less developed countries regarding access to information and data (the gap between what we know and what we don’t know).
