The Big Deal with Big Data: How Swipes, Clicks, and Taps Are Used to Monitor the

Consumer
By: Michael Evanoff Order up! You grab your large iced coffee and shuffle forward to pay at the register. Without a second thought you pull out your Visa card and hand it to the cashier who promptly swipes it and hands it back with your receipt. In the fi e seconds it took the computer terminal to process the transaction! your personal information "card number! #I$ number! current location! transaction amount! and funds a ailable% was transmitted across the world to a card&processing network to ensure the card data was accurate and non&fraudulent. 'he (conomist noted in their )ebruary *+,+ publication that retail stores like Walmart engage in o er one million similar consumer transactions e ery hour. 'o help e aluate such large sums of information! firms employ big data analysis techni-ues to find beha ioral and economic trends in the information. .s a result! big data has become a hot topic in technical and business realms alike! and while most indi iduals spend their time trying to place a simple definition on big data! consumers should also be aware of what it means for their pri acy and security. /efore di ing into the consumer significance of big data! it is important to ha e a general understanding of what big data is and who uses the information results. Viktor 0ayer& 1ch2nberger is a co&author of the book! Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think. 3e defines big data in the following way4 One way of looking at it is that 5big data6 means that we can do analysis && we can gain insight && with a lot of data that we can7t with a little data. /ecause of the way our world works today! gathering a lot of data is easy. In fact! it is more costly for a consumer to not lea e data behind! simply because

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so much business is conducted online today. If a consumer wanted to order a pi88a without lea ing behind a data trail! that indi idual would ha e to go to the actual pi88a shop to pick up their order and pay cash to a oid entering their address! phone number! and credit card number on the store6s website. When the pi88a company collects this data on hundreds or thousands of customers! they can analy8e the results to impro e parts of their business. )or e9ample! if the data shows that a ma:ority of customers are ordering from a single neighborhood! perhaps the pi88a store can e9pand their market by ad ertising in another neighborhood across town. .ccess to big data makes these analytics more meaningful than they may ha e been with less information and smaller sample si8es. In *+,*! ;(Os! ;IOs! and other e9ecuti es at some of the largest business and technology firms were sur eyed regarding their primary use of big dat. 'he participants! which included large financial firms such as /ank of .merica! )idelity In estments! and .merican (9press! cited the potential for better! fact&based decisions as the number one benefit to big data initiati es. One credit card firm noted the challenge to! accelerate the speed at which it could create new marketing offers and campaigns. )or these companies! gathering and preparing the actual data is the most time consuming step to data processing. When data is processed! the information comes from a ariety of sources! in a range of different formats. In the past! this data had to be standardi8ed before patterns and correlations could be identified. 3owe er! big data technology platforms are able to recogni8e data trends before the data is standardi8ed! cutting down on the time it takes a company to get to a better! more accurate decision by about <+=. )or credit card companies! this means reducing the amount of time to determine which customers are most likely to pay on time! or identifying which offers and

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ad ertising efforts are most effecti e.

;onsumers! howe er! may be more interested in finding out how their personal information is passed from the local coffee shop! pi88a store! or credit card company! to data collectors. With the recent

contro ersies related to the $1.6s phone and online sur eillance

programs! a shopper would most likely be frustrated to find out that the $1. is tracking their credit card transactions. While this may be true! the way that big data is formatted is actually beneficial for consumers6
Image 1ource4 www.pi88ahut.com Ordering online from stores and restaurants requires onsumers to enter their !ersonal and "illing information, leaving "ehind a data trail that these om!anies an use to im!rove their "usiness#

pri acy. ?ather than each transaction being processed indi idually! the data is handled as a group. 'his makes it easier to identify trends from a broad perspecti e without looking at each indi idual piece of data. In this way! consumers6 personal information is kept personal. 3owe er! should the $1. identify any -uestionable trends in credit card transactions! the organi8ation can drill down on a suspicious suspect. 'his techni-ue has been used in the past to thwart a potential terrorist attack. .l #ascual! a senior analyst for security! risk and fraud noted the following4

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.s the /oston 0arathon bombings illustrate! a tactic today6s terrorists use to stay under the radar is using common purchases "pressure cookers! nails! ball bearings% to create weapons. . red flag may be raised with the $1. if agents detect se eral of these e eryday items being purchased at the same time andAor in unusually large -uantities. ;onsumers should understand that because of the anonymous nature of big data! the information about their transactions is passed from the local store to the data collectors in a manner that helps keep their information pri ate and secure. 'he security benefits of gathering big data also help protect citi8ens by monitoring potentially dangerous buying patterns in a manner that is unobtrusi e to the otherwise lawful customer. .lthough data may be passed through many hands! big data also benefits consumers in ways that they may not e en notice. One of the best e9amples is related to ideo analytics in retail stores. Instead of focusing on consumer transaction information! a growing number of retailers are working with analysis firms to aggregate massi e amounts of

security ideo data to better understand consumer beha ior in their stores. )or instance! by mapping the foot traffic of customers throughout a store in a gi en day or week! big data can help retailers optimi8e the layout of a specific
Image 1ource4 www.retailne9t.net Heat ma!!ing an identif$ ustomer traffi !atterns throughout a store and suggest whi h dis!la$s attra t onsumer attention

department for more effecti e product placement based on customer interest.

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'he purpose of this is twofoldC helping the customer -uickly find what they are most interested in! and helping the store increase their sales. Dust as the information passed to credit card companies was analy8ed at first as an anonymous group! the big data used in ideo analysis "particularly heat mapping% is aggregated to pro ide the most effecti e results. Whereas a manager may make store layout ad:ustments based on the displays that they find most popular with consumers during his or her shift! big data analysis allows for better decision making by taking into account the actions of e ery customer that walks through the doors of that store.

While consumers should be wary of what information they gi e out! it is important to understand that the data an indi idual pro ides is only a small part of the larger big data package. In the pi88a store e9ample mentioned pre iously! an analyst cannot deri e any patterns by looking at a single online order. Only by looking at a summation of se eral thousand transactions can trends be identified! such as common neighborhoods for deli ery or the most popular times of day for an order. In these cases! consumers should not be concerned with their personal data being singled out. 3owe er! the trends that big data unco er can also be used by go ernment agencies! such as the $1.! as a means of drilling down on a suspect they may be tracking. 1eparating suspicious purchasing trends from normal purchasing patterns! allows officials to monitor irregular acti ities while keeping innocent citi8ens6 data pri ate. /y aggregating information! big data allows for faster! more accurate decisions that! in the end! are intended to benefit and protect you! the consumer.

?eferences

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