Making Better Sense of the Demographic Data Value in the Data Mining Procedure

Abstract

Data mining of personal demographic data is being used as a weapon in the War on Terrorism, but we are forced to acknowledge that it is a weapon loaded with interpretations derived from the use of dirty data in inherently biased systems that mechanize and de-humanize individuals. While the unit of measure is the individual in a local context, the global decision context requires thatwe understand geolocal reflexive communal selves who have psychological and social/societal relationship patterns thatcan differ markedly and change over time and in response to pivotal events. Local demographic data collectionprocesses fail to take these realities into account at the data collection design stage. As a result, existing data values rarely represent an individual's multi-dimensional existence in a form that can be mined. An abductive approach to data mining can be usedto improve the data inputs. Working from the “decision-in,„ we can identify and address challenges associated with demographic data collection and suggest ways to improve the quality of the data available for the data mining procedure. It is important to note that exchanging old values for new values is rarely a 1:1 substitution where qualitative data is involved. Different constituent userpopulations may require different levels of data complexity and they will need to improve their understanding of the data values reported at the local level if they are to effectively relate various local demographic databases in new and different global contexts.