In the “ocean” of data referred to as Big Data is a “frighteningly complete picture of you,” writes Dan Gardner for the Ottawa Citizen, adding that “With access to even a small portion of that data, corporations and governments can know far more about you than you might wish them to know.” The ability of companies to “find the hidden pattern, the unexpected correlation, the surprising connection” has increased productivity and may lead to great prosperity and significant advances--and could also mean that “Big Data could know us better than we know ourselves,” writes Gardner. “It could detect patterns of behaviour we are not aware of, and those patterns could reveal the unconscious thought processes that drive the behaviour.”
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