Look before you leap: Barriers to big data use in municipalities

Abstract

In this article we confront existing literature on barriers in big data implementation for policy making in municipal governments. We have conducted four cases in a Dutch municipality in which big data is implemented for policy solutions. This has led us to develop a new, comprehensive model which explains which barriers exist while making implementing big data. Dimensions such as the technological, the legal, the informational, the organizational, the ethical and the government-citizen relation dimension will be included in the study. It will be argued that ‘hard’ barriers, such as technological and legal prove to be of far lesser influence than literature suggests. On the other hand, the ‘soft’ barriers such as alignment issues and ethical considerations going further than legal aspects prove to be far more determining barriers for the policy making process in implementing big data solutions in municipal governments.