When many people think of big data, they are concerned with data leaks such as the situation with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

Eric William Davis uses big data and looks at which parts of the data itself are untrustworthy.

“A lot of the things that make data so great…make it so dangerous,” Davis said.

Davis works with International Procurement and Finance, a group that helps figure out which businesses have sanctions and which ones do not. They work closely with the World Bank Group.

“We look to our partners to bring us the real problems,” Davis said.

There are many times where a business will say that they are legit and give numerous references, however, the business turns out to be a mail slot in a door that simply receives checks.

Davis’ group works to find these groups in algorithms and differentiate them from real businesses.

“We don’t believe all of the data that we receive,” Davis said.

Coding does not have international standards, meaning that many times Davis’ group has to wade through crudely written codes in what he refers to as “The Data Jungle”.

“Our techniques need to get better,” Davis says.

There have also been discrepancies found in how businesses report nutrition facts for their facts in apps such as MyFitnessPal. Ten percent of the data that Davis has looked at does not comply with FDA guidelines. The majority of these false reports are centralized in a handful of manufacturers, however, the amount of false information found leads to mistrust.

“How much of [this data] hasn’t been found?” Davis said.