Ethical Challenges and Big Data Technology Adoption Readiness in Tanzania Public Sector Auditing: A Qualitative Analysis

Abstract

The adoption of big data technology in public sector auditing is expanding globally, offering opportunities for enhanced transparency, efficiency, and evidence-based decision-making. However, Big data’s architecture marked by opaque algorithms, rapid aggregation, and dynamic data flows creates inherent ethical frictions when applied within rigid public frameworks. These ethical challenges can actively hinder institutional readiness by constraining auditors’ ability to deploy tools in ways that comply with ethical standards. This study examines ethical challenges affecting the adoption readiness of big data technology in Tanzanian public sector auditing, grounded on socio-technical systems theory as its interpretative framework. A qualitative approach was employed, with purposive sampling used to collect data from twenty-five participants, analysed using a thematic technique. The analysis generated key themes including privacy, consent, transparency, fairness, and accountability which reflect the core ethical challenges affecting the adoption readiness of big data technologies in public sector auditing. The identified challenges do not merely represent risks but concretely limit organisational capacity and willingness to adopt big data systems, thereby stalling readiness in practice. The findings revealed a divergence between established ethical principles and the realities of big data technology practices, particularly in relation to privacy, consent, transparency, and fairness. In Tanzania, this divergence is intensified by localised conditions within public sector infrastructure. Limited digital innovation that can facilitate compliance with ethical standards, fosters uncertainty and apprehension among auditors which make readiness to adopt big data technologies uniquely complex in the Tanzanian public sector auditing context. Based on these findings, the study contributes by showing that adoption readiness is stalled by systemic frictions between technological imperatives and entrenched ethical/legal safeguards, and proposes XAI, dynamic consent, and PETs as pathways to reconcile them.