USING BIG DATA IN THE GOVERNMENT SECTOR

Nowadays, advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) result in the expansion of digital information. Across the public sector, huge quantities of data are generated in running public services. Government organizations need to significantly improve the use of the public data that they hold and to share this data with other organizations in order to improve the quality and efficiency of their services. This faces the huge challenge of Big Data (BD), which allows governments to make better decisions by taking action based on patterns detected by analyzing large volumes of related / unrelated and structured / unstructured data. BD can help improve the speed and accuracy of decision making and the overall efficiency of government agencies. This paper introduces the concepts of BD and Big Data Analytics (BDA) and their characteristics, benefits, impacts, and associated challenges in the government sector. Methods and technological progress in these fields are also presented. Applications in Romania, promoted in the context of the national 2020 Digital Agenda, are briefly described.