Towards Privacy aware Big Data analytics

Big Data platforms allow the integration and analysis of high volumes of data with heterogeneous format from different sources. Big Data analytics support the derivation of properties and correlations among data and are considered by companies a key asset to make business decisions. The analyzed data often include personal and sensitive information, thus the analysis implies threats to privacy, however, to the best of our knowledge, so far no Big Data analytics platform supports the specification and enforcement of privacy policies as a native service. Although the potential benefits of data analysis are manifold, the nonexistence of proper security and privacy protection mechanisms prevents the adoption of Big Data analytics by numerous companies. The inability of using analytics represents a potential economical loss since companies cannot derive information to enhance their business and management processes. Privacy-aware Big Data analytics are therefore required to address this issue. In this position paper, we discuss high level requirements and a roadmap to the development of a framework that integrates privacy policies management into Big Data analytics platforms.