Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process of automatically recognizing and converting different types of documents - such as scanned paper documents, PDFs, or images - into editable and searchable text.
OCR systems use Machine Learning (ML) and Computer Vision techniques to detect and classify patterns of characters in images.
Algorithms like Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are commonly used for image-based OCR.
While OCR may indirectly contribute to data mining or big data workflows, the core application is based on machine learning, where models are trained to classify and recognize text patterns.
Thus, OCR is primarily a Machine Learning application, making Option B correct.
Reference:
DASCA Data Scientist Knowledge Framework (DSKF) - Applications of Machine Learning: OCR and Pattern Recognition.