As the world keeps going online, with more and more people getting connected, there's more and more data available to be mined. And this large datasets of so called big data can be mined to inform decisions and policies for social good.
However, these datasets are so large that they create significant challenges for the organizations and governments handling them. One of those key challenges is privacy. In a world that is now more concerned about privacy than ever, after the revelations of top secret NSA surveillance programs, using big data comes with the risk of violating individual's rights.
More: http://mashable.com/2013/09/25/big-data-internet-freedom/