The public sector is gradually becoming more conscious of the transformational power of big data and its applications in many e-governance domains, even though it still lags behind the commercial sector.
Fremont, CA: Big data, a vast amount of digital data collected from various sources, offers opportunities for innovation, value creation, and decision-making. It encompasses data intelligence, analytics, and mining and has expanded its scope from reporting and decision support to forecasting, prediction, and decision-making. Governments worldwide are adopting big data analytics for e-governance projects, improving online information and service delivery, bringing transparency, monitoring performance, forecasting citizen demands, extracting intelligence, and providing better citizen services.
Key use cases for big data in E-governance:
Policy Planning: Big data analytics aids policymakers in generating economic indicators and insights through data from multiple sources. It collects high-frequency and granular data, enabling organizations to identify citizen needs, land usage, and road construction. This data also aids traffic regulation and movement, improving intersection crossing times.
Law Enforcement: Law enforcement utilizes big data solutions to enforce laws, reduce crime, and expand services. Technologies like facial recognition, speech recognition, drones, and predictive analytics help prevent crimes. Researchers in Bogota, Colombia, use risk terrain modeling for crime relationships.
Disaster Management: During the Covid-19 pandemic, big data analytics enabled government organizations to track virus spread, develop countermeasures, and aid disaster preparedness. Accurate information gathering and weather forecasting alerted citizens of natural calamities and identified vulnerable groups.
Citizen Services: Citizens expect personalized, on-demand delivery from businesses and government institutions. Governments can use big data to develop innovative delivery channels and improve citizen services like education, healthcare, taxes, housing, food distribution, and land registration.
Fraud Detection: Big data can help organizations detect fraud and corruption in government projects. The Australian Electoral Commission uses data simulations to investigate electoral fraud, improve polling processes, optimize resource allocation, and reduce voting time.
