About

The amount and variety of data that is available is growing rapidly and at a quicker pace. There is a wider range of data available in many formats, including audio, video, computer logs, purchase transactions, sensors and social networking sites. This has created big data, which are large, often unstructured data sets that are available, potentially in real time. At the same time, new data science techniques for maximising the value of both big data and other data sources are constantly being developed.

Within the Office for National Statistics (ONS), we want to understand the impact this may have on the statistical processes and outputs. The Big Data Team is investigating the advantages and challenges of using big data and data science techniques in official statistics. This includes projects such as exploring web-scraped price data, machine learning for matching addresses and natural language processing for coding textual survey responses.

All of our work fully complies with legal requirements and our obligations under the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. Part of the research within the project considers the ethical issues associated with using these types of data sources within official statistics.

For more information about the Big Data Team, please contact us at: ons.big.data.project@ons.gov.uk