The ability to collect and analyze big data holds much promise for improving our lives, from the advancement of scientific discoveries to facilitating and improving services provided to consumers. This promise also poses great risk from a privacy perspective, both to consumers: who may be giving away more information than they bargained for, and to companies: whose risk of incurring a data breach incident or running afoul of increasing regulation.

We will discuss the big data “trend”, its implication on the right to privacy and what both companies and consumers need to do in order to minimize their risks and maximize their rewards from Big Data