Data analytics is primarily focused on finding answers to questions that affect a business or company. This process involves devising methods to process, clean, and organize structured data so that statistical analyses can be run and key insights can be found. By finding answers to these questions, a Data Analyst can produce actionable insights that yield immediate professional improvements, as well as solutions that may benefit a company or organization for years to come. This process typically involves using a combination of computer programming, statistical analysis, and data visualization software.
This article will explore the integral role data analytics plays in helping various government agencies and departments transform big data into business insights.
What is Big Data?
Big data is not a new concept. As early as the 1950s, before the term “big data” was adopted, companies and organizations performed basic analytics, such as manually examining numbers on a spreadsheet, to identify trends and key insights. As the field of data analytics evolved, so did the speed and efficiency by which data was examined and useful insights applied to immediate decision making. The faster an organization could extract and use information from data, the greater of an edge they would have over competitors. Today, these huge datasets can be computationally analyzed to help locate trends, associations, and patterns. A variety of techniques and methods are currently used for analyzing data, which depend on the aim of analysis and the industry in which the insights will be applied.
How is Data Analytics Used by the Government?
In places such as the US, where technology is being quickly developed, the government must perform many complicated tasks and procedures at once. In order to do so, it’s crucial to have smart platforms that can gather, clean, filter, and analyze big data. Both local government agencies, as well as the federal government, seek out data-driven tools that will allow them to work more efficiently and solve problems faster. The more equipped government agencies and departments are to manage large datasets, the better equipped they are to prevent crime, the spread of diseases, terrorism, and environmental threats.
The following are some of the main ways the US government uses data analytics:
- Enforcing the law: By reviewing large databases that contain data on crime statistics, criminal identities, social media presence, and even license plates, government agencies use data analytic tools to gain insights from these numbers. This practice has led to an increase in predictive policing, or the ethically-debated act of preventing a crime before it can occur.
- Detecting fraud: One problem that has plagued the US government in the past is fraudulent transactions, which lead to substantial monetary loss. The Social Security Administration relies on data analysis to review disability claims to locate those that are suspected to be fraudulent. In addition, the Security Exchange Commission incorporates similar data analysis procedures to scour the financial market for suspicious trading activities.
- Research on health-related issues: Both the FDA and NIH use data analytics for health-related research. The FDA’s Technology Transfer program incorporates big data technology to help monitor patterns of foodborne illness. In addition, the NIH’s Big Data to Knowledge initiative was designed to further biomedical research. It involves harvesting, manipulating, and analyzing biomedical data to provide a more robust understanding of human health and disease
- Environment: Applying data analytics to environmental issues is a powerful tool in multiple branches of the government. NASA and the US Forest Service work together to refine data strategies that can anticipate weather and ground conditions, as well as the likelihood of forest fires. In addition, The National Center for Atmospheric Research compiles big data from various sources, such as utility companies and universities, to make more accurate weather forecasts.
- Responding to emergencies: When faced with emergency situations, local governments rely on data from various sources to help make immediate decisions that may impact large numbers of people. In addition, by leveraging communication channels, these agencies can alert people of potential threats via alerts and alarms.
- Combating tax evasion: In order to identify and ultimately reduce the number of companies or individuals who misrepresent their income when reporting taxes, the government relies on modern analytics platforms to help spot instances of tax evasion. Analytical algorithms are applied to financial information as well as social media platforms. These algorithms are designed to sift through data to compare spenders’ patterns to their declared income. This provides a relatively easy way to find those whose sending exceeds the income they have declared.
- Terrorism: In the recent past, social media platforms have become a popular platform for recruiting young people to terrorist organizations. By using machine learning algorithms, text mining, and big data analytics, the government can collect and review huge data stores pertaining to terrorist behavior, such as purchasing history, text messages, and strange conversations. Security agencies try to identify terrorist activity in real-time by spotting data patterns in order to thwart terrorist activity before it can occur.
How will Data Analytics be Used by the Government in the Future?
Considering the huge role data analytics has played in various government agencies over the years, it is likely that the future will bring new technologies that will continue to change the way big data is handled and analyzed. In the coming years, here are a few advances to expect that will enhance the government’s use of data analytics:
- The government is interested in integrating more intuitive, user-friendly tools into their daily tasks. These tools are expected to empower individual employees to perform tasks quicker and more efficiently while avoiding the needless complexity of past practices.
- The current use of customized data visualizations has become an integral facet of data analytics. The use of free-form, faster visualizations will become more prevalent in the future, which will help government operations run more smoothly in terms of budget and resource allocation.
- Cloud-based technologies will be used more to devise solutions that are more scalable and adaptable than the ones previously used.
Hands-On Data Analytics Articles
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