Privacy and Ethical Issues of Big Data in the Airline Industry

摘要

Big data technology has grown rapidly in recent years, and increasingly applications of this magic in all kinds of occupations bring out a series of effects, be they positive or negative. The airline industry, one of the biggest data producers, has prevailing advantages to utilize big data technology. It assists airline companies to optimize the process of booking, ordering and luggage tracking. Meanwhile, due to the huge amount of data generated, it is possible for them to predict flight delays and then provide better services for consumers. However, the application of big data in the airline industry also results in privacy and ethical issues. Users' information is tracked without permission and several immoral companies overly collect irrelevant personal private data. More disappointing thing is that some airline companies are not able to protect users' information, which causes bad damage on both company values and reputations and consumers' benefits. As it turns to the ethical issues, the case of United Airlines incident makes people aware of the further needed improvements for overbooking system. And it is also necessary for merchants to reconsider the unfair price strategy. Relevant laws and regulations are required to protect the user information and improve on existing issues.