Introduction to Data Ethics

An Introduction to data ethics, focusing on questions of privacy and personal identity in the economic world as it is defined by big data technologies, artificial intelligence, and algorithmic capitalism. Originally published in The Business Ethics Workshop, 3rd Edition, by Boston Acacdemic Publishing / FlatWorld Knowledge

DNA, Data and Ethics

The biophysical differences between different kinds of DNA data banks are described. The different ethical implications of DNA fingerprint data banks, data banks of known gene sequences, and data banks of total genomic sequences are considered. Ethical approaches using the concept of the common good and those based on human rights are evaluated in the context of DNA data. Additional theological considerations are discussed. In conclusion, a 'one size fits all' approach to bioethics in this area is rejected

Building the Learning Analytics Curriculum: Should we Teach (a Code of) Ethics?

This brief chapter explores the feasibility of teaching (a code of) ethics against a background which examines our views around data scientists, data analysis, data and, in particular, student data. It touches upon different approaches to ethics and asks whether teaching ethics would make any difference

Ethnography, ethics and ownership of data

© The Author(s) 2019. Establishing trust and obtaining informed consent with participants is reliant upon on a process whereby unequally positioned agents constantly re-negotiate (mis)trust and consent during ethnographic encounters. All research has been increasingly subject to an intensification in ethical regulation, within a context whereby Eurocentric norms and ethical guidelines arguably diminish individual accountability under the guise of quasi-contractual relationships. This phenomenon has particular implications for ethnography and its management of ethics, given its intimate, longitudinal and receptive nature. Two expert ethnographers working with children and young people draw upon their work to reveal how issues of informed consent and data ownership can shift and be a source of tension and unequal power dynamics. The ethnographer requires autonomy while managing ethics soundly in situ to work within the messiness and unpredictability of participants’ everyday lives

Big Data Ethics in Research

The main problems faced by scientists in working with Big Data sets, highlighting the main ethical issues, taking into account the legislation of the European Union. After a brief Introduction to Big Data, the Technology section presents specific research applications. There is an approach to the main philosophical issues in Philosophical Aspects, and Legal Aspects with specific ethical issues in the EU Regulation on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (Data Protection Directive - General Data Protection Regulation, "GDPR"). The Ethics Issues section details the specific aspects of Big Data. After a brief section of Big Data Research, I finalize my work with the presentation of Conclusions on research ethics in working with Big Data. CONTENTS: Abstract 1. Introduction - 1.1 Definitions - 1.2 Big Data dimensions 2. Technology - 2.1 Applications - - 2.1.1 In research 3. Philosophical aspects 4. Legal aspects - 4.1 GDPR - - Stages of processing of personal data - - Principles of data processing - - Privacy policy and transparency - - Purposes of data processing - - Design and implicit confidentiality - - The (legal) paradox of Big Data 5. Ethical issues - Ethics in research - Awareness - Consent - Control - Transparency - Trust - Ownership - Surveillance and security - Digital identity - Tailored reality - De-identification - Digital inequality - Privacy 6. Big Data research Conclusions Bibliography DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11054.4640

The ethics of uncertainty for data subjects

Modern health data practices come with many practical uncertainties. In this paper, I argue that data subjects’ trust in the institutions and organizations that control their data, and their ability to know their own moral obligations in relation to their data, are undermined by significant uncertainties regarding the what, how, and who of mass data collection and analysis. I conclude by considering how proposals for managing situations of high uncertainty might be applied to this problem. These emphasize increasing organizational flexibility, knowledge, and capacity, and reducing hazard

Include medical ethics in the Research Excellence Framework

The Research Excellence Framework of the Higher Education Funding Council for England is taking place in 2013, its three key elements being outputs (65% of the profile), impact (20%), and “quality of the research environment” (15%). Impact will be assessed using case studies that “may include any social, economic or cultural impact or benefit beyond academia that has taken place during the assessment period.”1 Medical ethics in the UK still does not have its own cognate assessment panel—for example, bioethics or applied ethics—unlike in, for example, Australia. Several researchers in medical ethics have reported to the Institute of Medical Ethics that during the internal preliminary stage of the Research Excellence Framework several medical schools have decided to include only research that entails empirical data gathering. Thus, conceptual papers and ethical analysis will be excluded. The arbitrary exclusion of reasoned discussion of medical ethics issues as a proper subject for medical research unless it is based on empirical data gathering is conceptually mistaken. “Empirical ethics” is, of course, a legitimate component of medical ethics research, but to act as though it is the only legitimate component suggests, at best, a partial understanding of the nature of ethics in general and medical ethics in particular. It also mistakenly places medicine firmly on only one side of the science/humanities “two cultures” divide instead of in its rightful place bridging the divide. Given the emphasis by the General Medical Council on medical ethics in properly preparing “tomorrow’s doctors,” we urge medical schools to find a way of using the upcoming Research Excellence Framework to highlight the expertise residing in their ethicist colleagues. We are confident that appropriate assessment will reveal work of high quality that can be shown to have social and cultural impact and benefit beyond academia, as required by the framework