After analysing the meaning of the expression
“Big Data”, this article highlights the cultural
nature of data and defends the validity of
theories, models and hypotheses for carrying
out scientific research. Lastly, it discusses the
dialectic between privacy and control. In a sense,
this issue escapes the traditional field of the
humanities, but it also deserves our attention as
twenty-first-century citizens interested in the
cultural practices of the present. Humanists no
doubt have much to contribute to ethical and
epistemological debates on the use of the data
generated by citizens, recalling the “captured”
and cultural nature of data, and bringing their
experience to analysing particular cases bearing
in mind the general context.