The big data – huge amount of data – era has begun and is redefining how organizations deal with information. While the business sector has been using and developing big data applications for nearly a decade, only recently the public sector has begun to adopt this technology to gather information and use it as a decision support tool. Few organizations have so many advantages to harness the potential of the big data as the public service agencies, because of a large amount of data they have access to. However, due to the current theme, there is still a long way to go. Some papers have presented ways in which governments are using big data to better serve their citizens. Nevertheless, there is still much uncertainty about the real possibility of improving government operations through this technology. By analyzing the literature related to the topic, this paper aims to present the areas of public administration that can take advantage of the data analysis. In addition, raising the challenges and resilience faced for the insertion of the big data in the public sector is also important. In this way, we seek to understand how public organizations can take advantage of the data that they have, to manage and improve the efficiency and offer of public services to society. The results showed that several organizations can modernize and improve their operations with data analysis, but challenges need to be overcome. Therefore, the big data presents itself as an important tool for the modernization of public administration.