Beyond do no harm

Introduction to Data Ethics

Shalini Kurapati, PhD

Co-founder and CEO, Clearbox AI

Legal or ethical?

Ethics and laws are closely related
Ethics, go beyond laws:
- Evolving sense of right and wrong
- Society, religion, progress, civilization
Ethics are guidelines, laws are enforced
Legal does not equate to ethical, ethics go beyond laws

Illustration of a hand on a book.

¹ Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

Lessons from the past

HeLa Cells

Portrait of Henrietta Lacks

Immortal human cells, crucial in advancing cancer research
From Henrietta Lacks, without her consent from a biopsy
Privacy, dignity, respect- ethical issues

Tuskegee syphilis study

Flyer for recruiting participants for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Effects of untreated syphilis, 1932-1972
African American participants, not informed well, no access to treatment
100+ died as a result, despite treatment options

Guiding ethical principles

Illustration of a book of ethics

Do not harm- minimize risks for individuals
Beneficence- Maximize benefits for others and society
Respect, autonomy, agency- consent, privacy, information, control, agency
Justice- Legality, fairness and non-discrimination
IEEE, ACM address data ethics - Responsible use of data, preventing misuse

¹ Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com ² https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/index.html ³ http://ethics.acm.org/code-of-ethics/ ⁴ https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

Data ethics: Old problems new cover

Facebook's emotional contagion study

Screenshot of an online article on the Atlantic on Facebook's manipulative social experiment.

Data scientists skewed newsfeeds of 700,00 users to influence behavior
Users not informed, nature of research and purpose of data collection

Google's project nightingale Screenshot of WSJ's reporting on Google's Project Nightingale

Google handling of sensitive data
Large scale medical data without patient consent or doctor's knowledge

¹ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7059004/

Encoded data ethics in laws

Illustration of a faceless judge in front of a microchip to illustrate regulating data and technology.

Data protection laws like GDPR, CCPA embed several data ethics principles
Privacy, data security, transparency, informed consent, non-discrimination, accountability
Not mere guidance, but enforced
- GDPR fines
- EUR 20 million or 4% of the worldwide turnover

¹ Icon made by Leremy from www.flaticon.com

The business case for data ethics

Compliance and reputation

Screenshots of news items that show the American FTC and Italian authorities penalizing companies for lax data practices.

Regulators move in for lax data practices- FTC, Italian DPA
Following high data ethics standards boosts compliance
Attractive to clients and employees

Responsible innovation Collage of the various features of LinkedIn economic graph project.

LinkedIn Economic Graph in collaboration with governments, policy makers
Benefits clients, society and the company

¹ https://economicgraph.linkedin.com/

Let's practice!

Introduction to Data Ethics