Protecting Data Analytics From Litigation

Corporations have been encouraged by consultants and various success stories to keep finding more ways to monetize “Big Data,” by way of data analytics. It’s clearly a ripe and open field. But a potential downside that gets less attention is that big data analytics can be used in ways that, often inadvertently, constitute or lead to violations of the law – for example, by way of algorithms that although created with a seemingly legitimate business or marketing purpose in mind, in effect discriminate. “The bottom line,” Watson writes, “is that the powerful algorithms making data analytics possible are no longer simply complex numbers on paper. Rather, they are a door through which the FTC can enter your business and examine potential violations of federal law.”