ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines new social harms and national security threats created by the big data landscape. First, it charts the impacts of the rapid growth in data storage and analytical or computational capacity and shows how the big data landscape is making these capabilities accessible to new actors. This includes how big data ‘democratises’ intelligence capabilities, making intrusive digital surveillance, profiling, influence, monitoring, tracking and targeting capabilities available to a wider range of actors (both state and non-state actors). Second, it shows how this is democratising surveillance as well as creating new vulnerabilities for often remote and opaque privacy intrusion. Third, it highlights the capability for asymmetrical information dominance, which offers a strategic advantage. Fourth, it reveals how big data can drive disinformation and misinformation, including through machine learning and artificial intelligence, to have social and political influence and interfere with democratic processes. Finally, it examines how the big data landscape enables information warfare as well as social and political harm.
