In a new study that digs into the meaning of data ethics in the context of the power dynamics of AI and big data, DataEthics.eu’s co-founder Gry Hasselbalch argues that data ethics has to become more than just a moral … Read More
Despite clear age rules many games are ignoring the fact that children are using their services. Children have a right to digital privacy and protection against advertisments (especially personalised) but they are not protected at all in most games. This … Read More
At present, vaccination status does not offer clear or conclusive evidence about any individual’s risk to others via transmission. Without that, it cannot be a robust basis for risk-based decision making, and therefore any roll out of a digital passport … Read More
Published 14-01-2021 at Nordic Engineers “Ditch the algorithm!” became one of the battle cries of 2020, encapsulating the fear that humanity is being subordinated to technology[1]. At the same time, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems is increasingly … Read More
A new paper ‘Democratic Data: A Relational Theory For Data Governance’ shows us that you can donate your data and this can affect others negatively. Data about you dot now only affect you. Data about you affects others as well. … Read More
Many people like YouTube recommendations, but they can also lead some into extremism or have other serious consequences, and YouTube does have a history of recommending harmful content — from pandemic conspiracies to political disinformation — to its users, even … Read More
Hosted by the Institute of Future and Innovation Studies at John Cabot University in collaboration with the Festival della Diplomazia. In recent years, public interest in the ethical implications of AI has increased significantly, as it has the growing consensus … Read More
New draft guidelines from the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) on social media are clarifying roles and responsibilities for platforms, users and advertisers. The draft guidelines are open for public consultation until October 19, 2020 and can have far reaching … Read More
China has risen as a key player in the digital domain. And it uses its influence to promote digital authoritarianism, which presents security, privacy, and human rights concerns for the free world. China is working to undermine our democratic institutions … Read More
The final Assessment List for Trustworthy AI (ALTAI) presented by the European High Level Expert Group on AI is intended for self-evaluation purposes. It is based on the initial assessment list outlined in the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI created … Read More
Facebook’s decisions over the last nine months have resulted in serious setbacks for civil rights and the prioritisation of free expression over all other values, such as equality and non-discrimination, is deeply troubling to the auditors. Further on privacy, groups … Read More
Paper. In the current data economy, very few people gain opportunities to control significant amounts of personal data. Control over personal data assets is distributed very unequally across social positions. Most users of are only able to provide consent for … Read More
The inversion of democracy is a slow process of getting used to less and less freedom. In moments of crisis, there is a big risk that we make choices about adopting public health tech too hastily and without considerations as … Read More
A new paper presents evidence to support a potential antitrust case against Google based on its apparent dominant position and alleged anti-competitive conduct in the digital advertising market in the US. It alleges that Google has used it … Read More
DataEthics.eu’s white paper on AI in public procurement has been forwarded to EU policymakers. First response we have received is from the European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton who writes (26th of May 2020): “..I was very pleased to … Read More
Public Institutions Can Lead the Way to Trustworthy AI Many European public institutions have installed or want to install a chatbot on their website to serve their citizens 24/7. But which service provider should they chose? There are a whole … Read More
Technologies are not neutral, neither are choices in the public procurement of AI. The AI systems we deploy today are the systems we will live with tomorrow. Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping the opportunities of European citizens and transforming their … Read More
This white paper recommends the inclusion of data ethics requirements in the public procurement of AI-based services and solutions. To this end, a procurement model should include a due diligence process. This makes it possible for the public procurer to … Read More
(updates 29th April and 6th July below) Because of the Corona crisis, many are advised to stay at home and to avoid physical contact as much as possible. This means that we must avoid meeting up with co-workers, voluntary organisations … Read More
This article is written by guest writer Annesophie Eve Hørlyk based on her master’s thesis that was published in the IT University of Copenhagen in January 2020. Informed consent is one of the primary means to protect internet users’ autonomy … Read More
Yuval Harari, historian and author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, has written an opinion in The Financial Times and everybody, especially politicians, should read it, as it is vital that we do not give up on our democratic rights even … Read More
Did you know that the Spanish Comunidad Valenciana is the only European region that protects their student’s privacy in public schools through open source tools and platforms? Many other schools in Europe are using big tech mainly from the US … Read More
Are you doing webinars? Here are advice on how to get a good start (and ethical tools to use). Many still feel uncomfortable with organizing webinars and prefer physical events. And agreed, there are things you cannot do in a … Read More
Over the past couple of years experts have been pointing to ‘data trusts’ as a way to make a more democratic and fair infrastructure. Report after report have pointed to the need of trying this out. Despite wide endorsement of … Read More
There are many examples of bad design. Unethical design and even illegal design, where services are trying to lure more data out of us than necessary. A really good report from the French Data Protection Agency CNIL is addressing this. … Read More
Registration rates: Students/NGO 100 euro Standard 250 euro Business 350 euro The fees include all days of the forum (one full day Friday and half a day Saturday) in beautiful Roman surroundings … Read More
AI decision making systems based on complex data collection and analytics embedded in society are increasingly shaping the opportunities of the human being. Still we do not have standardized ethics and social impact assessments in the design phase of these … Read More
Our human rights are at stake in the age of surveillance capitalism. Private companies are not bound by human rights law, as states are, but operate in a grey zone between corporate responsibility, data ethics and human rights. A new … Read More
Companies, organisations, goverments and individuals all have a responsibility when it comes to saving our democracy. According to Ulrike Reisach, Professor at the Information Management Department of Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences in Bavaria/Germany, we have a whole lot to … Read More
On Wed, Nov 13, 2019 at 7:41 AM Pernille@dataethics.eu <pernille@dataethics.eu> wrote: Dear Wire For years now I have been recommending Wire (over Signal and Telegram) to everybody, and I have turned a lot of people over to you. Your former … Read More
Danish companies want to make it a competitive advantage to behave ethically with personal data and are therefore about to establish a seal for ‘good IT security and responsible data use’. It is backed by the Danish government, and The … Read More
HighLights. Data democracy vs data dictatorship and data monopolies. AI and ethics. Individual data control. These topics went through thorough examination at this year’s DataEthics Forum, where participants from South Africa over the US and all of Europe met and … Read More
Watch DataEthics.eu, AccessNow, AlgoritmWatch and Element.ai in panel debate at Mozilla Festival 2019 on Governing AI.
DataEthics’ Mozilla fellow 2019/20 is now announced. Each year Mozilla Fellows embed at a host organization. Fellows and host organizations are supported by the Ford Foundation, Mozilla and others and work alongside each other fighting for digital rights. See … Read More
Here’s some of the fine recommendations from experts in rights and ethics, law, social science, culture, politics and economy in The Human Brain Project who gathered in March 2019 in Copenhagen to discuss what is needed for AI to be … Read More
An upcoming new media company had to put a lot of effort into finding a newsletter provider where you can turn off tracking. Compared to most traditional media, who track us all like they were Google or Facebook, this coming … Read More
How to put human values into voice assistants and to make the digital infrastructure more human centric. Those were two of more topics at the German DLD conference – first time in Brussels – in September. Do watch the videos. … Read More
A study from University of Zürich looks at how the insurance companies use data to assess, select, price, predict and prevent risks. Big Data analytics and Artificial Intelligence are used in areas such as telematics in car insurance, fraud detection, … Read More
By Gry Hasselbalch and Sille Obelitz Søe How can we trust AI? This is one of the most pressing questions we are facing at the moment with the rapid speed in development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning algorithms. … Read More
The British data protection watchdog ICO is investigating how personal data is used in digital ads. It does not look good. In an interim report, the ad tech industry is blamed for not protecting our data sufficiently in the real … Read More
Fierce competition, ethics and regulations. Such are the answers from Europe and part of the US in a discussion at the Brussels Forum by the German Marshall Fund about how to safeguard our democracies. The packed agenda ended with a … Read More
Summary of Research Article: Data ethics is gaining momentum. Citizens are starting to act on their lack of control over their data, legislation is adapting, and alternative business models and technologies are emerging. But what shape is our ethical awareness … Read More
Mozilla Internet Health Report 2019 This year’s annual report from Mozilla focuses on three issues, AI, digital advertising and cities, not smart cities, but how city governments and civil society can work togeter to make the internet healthier. Mozilla writes: … Read More
News. Facial recognition is a critical technology for us to debate before we deploy it all over to catch criminals, make a profit on selling the technology or using it to reduce headcount by replacing humans. San Francisco just banned … Read More
News. Human Rights Watch (HRW) got access to an app, “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” (IJOP), which they say the Chinese authority in the western Xinjiang region uses to surveil and categorise the local population. By ‘reverse engineering’ HRW was able … Read More
Event. The fourth European Data Ethics Forum will be Thursday October 10th in Copenhagen at CFL. We (DataEthics.eu and our cool partner Danish IT) already have a bunch of truely interesting speakers such as UN Global Pulse, who has 75 … Read More
From our own world. Three exciting events coming up this spring. And mark you calendars for October 10th where the 4th European Data Ethics Forum will take place in Copenhagen. Our thinkdotank participates in many international meetings giving expert advice … Read More
Study. At least 13 jurisdictions in the US are currently using predictive policing systems or have previously been engaged in predictive policing pilots. An examination of the implications of using dirty data with predictive policing shows an elevated risks of … Read More
Blog. Are we seeing a Europe working towards prohibiting the fundamental surveillance business model of Facebook, Google and the ad tech industry? So, it seems from a recent German antitrust decision and a EU comment. In February the German antitrust … Read More
Today the spaces we move in are extended by digital infrastructures that tracks us by default. Surveillance has become ordinary. Conducted by not only state actors, but also commercial actors and embedded in the digital and physical architecture and atmospheres … Read More
News. For years the US has been investigating the data broker industry. Now Europe are taking a closer look into their activities. For years, data brokers have operated in the shadows, but with GDPR and a shift in public opinion … Read More
Report. Go beyond GDPR and ban sending personally identifiable data out to advertising networks. Such are the recommendation from the British New Economics Foundation, who is working to transform the economy to work for people and the planet, in its … Read More
The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which was appointed by the European Commission this summer has released the first draft of its Ethics Guidelines for the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI). In this document, the independent group of 52 experts, … Read More
Artificial intelligence, AI, is a popular topic. A future scenario, in which everything and everyone are connected via intelligent machines and networks that constantly exchange data which decides our options and defines and guides us, is no longer science fiction; … Read More
News. The era of data ethics is upon us—and only those with the highest standards will win over global customers, says an article in SAP’s magasine The D!gitalist who is also listing new models for data management once consumers and … Read More
News. Privacy International has filed complaints against 7 data brokers (Acxiom, Oracle), ad-tech companies (Criteo, Quantcast, Tapad), and credit referencing agencies (Equifax, Experian) with data protection authorities in France, Ireland, and the UK. It is a huge, well-research set of complaints that … Read More
Research. New study casts doubt on the ability of new technology to target effectively. Many people believe that we are all being micro-targetted with manipulative ads and messages from politicians. But an Australian study proves different. Personalised advertising may be … Read More
Paper. The rise of the ethical technology debate runs in parallel to the increasing resistance to any regulation at all. Assistant professor Ben Wagner is worried that the focus on ethics can be used as a way of getting around … Read More
EVENT. DPO Julia Sommer has done some great drawings from European DataEthics Forum 2018. You can read more about the conference here and here. See you next year. Sign up to our monthly newsletter to get the news about it. … Read More
EVENT. With the third European DataEthics Forum in Copenhagen we once again demonstrated that we are way beyond talking about data ethics. We do it. And this year we went deeper with for example demonstrations of how to explain an … Read More
Event. We’ve heard much about ‘black box algorithms and AI’. Secret systems that analyse and predicts your credit score and search results, your likability of getting the flue or winning a game. ‘Black box’ means secret, a business secret just … Read More
Study. A wide EU-study shows that 92% of the airline ticket websites, 76% of hotel room websites, and 41% of websites selling sports shoes personalise offers, when a consumer enters the site. The price differentiation, though, seems to be very … Read More
Research. Google sucks up more personal data than most people could imagine. Even when a Chrome browser is in “incognito” mode, shows new research form Vanderbilt University. Google denies it and tries to miscredit the professor behind. Get a list … Read More
Who should be the most autonomous. Cars? Chat bots? AI based doctors? Or Humans? Humans, of course, and if we aim to keep humans behind the wheel, we need data ethical considerations on top of our privacy policies. But what … Read More
Research. Businesses, politicians and scholars all call for property rights in data. But this should be avoided according to a research paper from University of Californation. “Various parties are actively staking their claims to data on the Internet of Things, … Read More
EVENT. The woman who is fighting Facebook. The man who is fighting Google. A bunch of privacy and data ethics focused startups and companies. And a wonderful international network of humans who are interested in using personal data in an … Read More
News. “Three-person babies. Extreme biohacking. Outposts on Mars. Cheating death. The changing nature of life as we know it. The future portends to be amazing (and terrifying), and it’s right around the corner.” This is how Medium is selling its … Read More
The UK government is asking the public sector to work with data in an ethical responsible way. Therefore they have released an ethical framework to spur data ethical innovation. It deals with 7 principles and are mainly initiatives done on … Read More
RESEARCH. In a new report on Artificial Intelligence, the UK House of Lords promotes ethics as the centre of the development of artificial intelligence. The reports also paints a picture of a current AI field run by data monopolies. The report … Read More
News. In both hearings before the US Senate and Congress, Facebook CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg only mentioned two kinds of data: information that people decide to share on the platform, and data that is automatically collected about people’s behaviour, … Read More
News. YouTube is profiting off young views and illegally collecting data about under-age viewers. This is the accusation of more than 20 advocacy group who have filed a complaint to the FTC to investigate if Google – owner of YouTube … Read More
With the increasing public debate on questions regarding fake news, voter manipulation etc., ethical questions regarding data handling have finally gained real momentum. Several initiatives are currently set in motion to develop the basic data ethics standards for technology and … Read More
News. A new study, The Child Data Violators, made by the thinkdotank DataEthics.eu is benchmarking 14 services aimed at or used by children. It shows that only 2 of 14 are treating childrens’ data ethically responsible. LEGO and Edulab are … Read More
News. Dana Boyd, researcher at Microsoft, founder of Data & Society and a kids and gadget expert, has some good tips for parents worrying about their kids’ addiction to their Smartphones. It is about verbalizing what you do, making a … Read More
Analysis. Personal data can help develop societies. We use data to predict patterns and manage risks, to invent new vaccines, get effective access to information, create new and cleaner technologies. But, in the case of predictions based on personal data, … Read More
Survey. Location data is one of the most sensitive personal data types it seems according to consumers. A new survey shows that a vast majority are very uneasy sharing location data and that only a small minority share location always … Read More
Whitepaper. Use GDPR to improve data protection strategies, says new whitepaper “Maintaining Data Protection and Privacy Beyond GDPR Implementation” from ISACA, written by Privacy Program Manager Tim Clements. Download it below. Too many enterprises are treating their GDPR challenge as … Read More
Research. Data analysis is the rocket fuel for targeted advertising on social media platforms. It is a mistake to fixate on Russia, as it is only one of many online disinformation operators, according to new research on precision propaganda called … Read More
News. The new European privacy law, GDPR, is having effect all over the world for companies wanting a part of the lucrative EU market. Big in the US has been changing their services to live up to the new regulation. … Read More
News. Apple’s privacy-by-default feature, Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) in the newest version of the Safari browser will cost the ad tech business millions of dollars. One of the big players is downsizing its estimations of revenue by 22%, according to … Read More
The thinkdotank DataEthics.eu has developed a set of data ethics principles and guidelines that may help the integration of data ethics in your data processing activities. Here, we present the principles, a detailed questionnaire and a FAQ on data ethics. … Read More
News. Protection and preventing abusive competition are two sides of the same coin when it comes to social networks, according to the Germans, whose anti-trust authority accuses Facebook of abusing its dominant position. The German authority objects to Facebook’s requirement … Read More
Research. The importance of digital technologies for social and economic developments and a growing focus on data collection and privacy concerns have made the Internet a salient and visible issue in global politics. Recent developments have increased the awareness that … Read More
Research. There has been much dispute over GDPR and whether it entails a right to explanation of e.g. algorithmic decision-making. According to a paper from Andrew D. Selbst, Data & Society, and Julia Powles, University of Cambridge that right is … Read More
Testimony. The personal reputation business is exploding. Having eroded privacy for decades, shady, poorly regulated data miners, brokers and resellers have now taken creepy classification to a whole new level. Such are the words of professor of Law Frank Pasquale, … Read More
Research. AI does not exist in a vacuum and the promises of the tech companies behind are not enough. New report highlights four challenge areas and gives recommendations on how to proceed. Artificial intelligent (AI) systems are already integrated in … Read More
News. Depending on how much a traditional salesperson – or the computer system knows about you – that is typically the price you get. The key question is whether personalized pricing in-store as well as on the web, is ethical. … Read More
Research. Can regular people, not just impersonal, commercially-motivated merchants or advertising networks—can exploit the online advertising ecosystem to extract private information about other people? The answer is yes. A new study documents that. For example, an individual or small group … Read More
Survey. Young people seem optimistic about technology and the benefits it may bring not only to their personal lives but also to society at large. But there is a limit to how much they would trust robots and if they … Read More
News. Driverless cars should prioritize the protection of human life over the destruction of animals or property. Such are a set of new guidelines from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure after a panel of experts have scrutinized … Read More
News. There have been ethical problems and ambiguities about Facebook since the moment of its creation. Three books dive into the company that claims to have 2 bio users, is growing 18% a year and sits on 4 og the … Read More
Research. Cybertroops are government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media. Cyber troops are a pervasive and global phenomenon. Many different countries employ significant numbers of people and resources to manage and manipulate public … Read More
News. IoT predictions have been soaring, but the last year they have taken a turn. May be your customers aren’t ready for them yet and they simply don’t want smart features. Ask them and consider the economics, before you invest … Read More
NEWS: The IEEE P7006™ – Standard for Personal Data Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agent can help develop AI agents to provide data vaults and algorithms allowing individual access and control of personal information. The growth of Artificial Intelligence creates a risk … Read More
Event. For the second year the 3-day MyData conference in Finland will be held august 3oth-Sept 2nd 2017. The list of speakers is over 100 (DataEthics is one) and the programme is divided into 12 thematic tracks. and the main stage … Read More
News. Google has helped finance 100s of research papers to defend against regulatory challenges of its market dominance in the US, paying $5,000 to $400,000 for the work, The Wall Street Journal found. Google uses the research in meetings with … Read More
News. Blocking ads – and thus also cookie-tracking – is much more common (and easy) on the computer than on mobile gadgets. A new report, The State of Mobile Adblocking, shows that 1 of 2 US smartphone users actually wish … Read More
News. As nascent technologies fuse physical, digital and biological worlds the question arise: What does it mean to be human? We have already began transforming man to machine, and some people believe in the ‘singularity’ – that artificial intelligence advances … Read More
News. A new ‘The Digital Standard’ shall help consumers “understand which digital products do the most to protect their privacy and security, and give them the most control over their personal data.” With a historic power to influence governments and … Read More
