Apparently it’s not a thing in the Big Data universe. Everything from how data is collected, to who sees it, to how it is processed and analyzed

As O’Neil points out in Weapons of Math Destruction, this is just part of the problem, but it comes back again and again.

The lack of transparency prevents any real analysis of effectiveness of the various WMD’s. Not only do we not know what data is collected, we don’t know how it is measured.

So, if the WMD is inaccurate, we really don;t have any recourse. We can protest it, but, more often than not, the powers that be will say, “This is what the data show.” They accept it as correct even though they don’t know what it’s doing.

The opaqueness of the process also prevents correction. These are closed systems. They don’t change until the coders decide they need to. the coders may be resistant to change. After all, they came up with the data analysis to begin with, they might think they got it right and resist evidence to the contrary.

I’m not saying that other issues aren’t important, they absolutely are, but the lack of transparency just gets to me every time.