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
The internet was never designed with the best interest of the child in mind. Now it is time to fix it! This seems to be the philosophy behind to law proposals in the US and the UK. In the spring … 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
In the paper Owning Ethics: Corporate Logics, Silicon Valley, and the Institutionalization of Ethics by Jacob Metcalf, Emanuel Moss and Danah Boyd the authors investigates the role and pitfalls of ethics in big cooperate firms in Silicon Valley and how … Read More
One of the main role models within the new data ethics era might end up being the Swedish multinational Ingka Group, the strategic partner to IKEA. The company presented its thoughts for the first time at the World Economic Forum … Read More
If we want to use personal data to help humans and societies thrive, we need to make de-anonymisation illegal and let independent third parties into machine rooms to audit anonymisation processes. As it is today, we get more and more … Read More
Brands should be very careful using one of Facebook’s ad platforms. They are creepy stalkers, and more and more will get annoyed by it. Pouring you marketing money into that might be doing yourself a disservice. The other day I … Read More
When talking about data collection and profiling of tech companies, people tend to think: “It does not concern me, I have nothing to hide.” The issue, however, is not about protecting secrets. It is about protecting our free will and … Read More
Growth can happen fast. TikTok was launched in 2017 as a video social networking app for markets outside of Asia, and in November 2019 the app was one of the most downloaded in the world with more than 1.5 billion … Read More
Today elections around the world face problems like violence, corruption, long waiting time, accessibility, affordability and privacy. Blockchain systems promise new opportunities for storing data and securing trust and transparency, but how can they be used to secure elections? Decentralized … 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
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
According to professor in information science Helen Nissenbaum data protection should apply for all types of information – and not just personal information. In her book ‘Privacy In Context’, she argues that we have a dicotomatic understanding of privacy: something … Read More
All you need is a URL. Share it. Go there and you are in the video meeting. No need to create an account or download an app or any software. Most people use US-based video conference tools in stead of … Read More
“In a world of connected toys, communications platforms and information services it is extremely difficult for parents and children to to make informed choices or exercise any control over the way services use children’s data. “Often the only choice in … Read More
The policy recommendations of the EU High Level Group on AI were published 26th June 2019. DataEthics.eus cofounder Gry Hasselbalch was one of the 52 experts assigned with the tasks to create ethical guidelines (published earlier this year) and policy … Read More
Interview with Mette Nordahl Svendsen, professor in anthropology and member of the steering group of the Challenge project, researching all the ethical issues involved in health data science. When you are old, sick and cannot speak or move, you need … Read More
As the internet of things evolves, it will eventually become what Steen Rasmussen calls “the internet of everything”. It will be a super infrastructure that is connected to every aspect of our lives and thus a way to gather personal … Read More
Blog. When Apple blocked by default all third party cookies in its Safari-browser, Facebook and others made a circumvention and used a first party cookie to track us. Apple is back with an answer to that. The ad tech industry … Read More
Blog. We are forgetting the nature of humans, when we are applying the methods of computer problems. Human ability to think in the whole can never pass on to the computer whose language is binary encoding of data. And human … Read More
Blog. Obtaining relevant patient data for pharmaceutical and medical research in Europe is no easy task. To keep pace with American and Chinese companies there is a solution: Let European citizens exercise their right to a copy of their data, … Read More
BLOG. If we want to use personal data to enhance our lives and society, we need to do it in a way that can be trusted and does not compromise our privacy. Danish scientists offer a solution where data is … Read More
Get this article in Spanish here Blog. The future is lying in the cities. In 1950, approximately 1 billion people were living in urbanized areas on our planet; by the end of this century UN projections forecast that 85% of the world … Read More
The EU’s first ethics guidelines on AI have been published. Dataethics.eu’s cofounder Gry Hasselbalch is a member of the EC High Level Expert Group that developed the guidelines. She sat down on the day of the launch and outlined her … Read More
Blog. We went from Age of Humans to Age of Google in just 20 years. You can never trust Google to tell the truth and the whole truth about what the data monopoly knows about you. But here is how … Read More
Blog. The global AI race has been on for a while. It is about speedy automation, and China and the US are heading in a fierce competition, where human autonomy is secondary to economic growth. China operates as a ‘data … Read More
Blog. The Chinese Government’s role in China’s tech revolution and application of AI is huge and clever – and according to Kai-Fu Lee, a Chinese-American investor, China will very soon catch up with and possibly surpass the US in artificial … Read More
News. A new way of getting you to pay the optimal price – according to the seller – is to higher the price, the closer you get to a physical store, according to a story In Yahoo Finance. But this … Read More
Blog. 2o18 was the year of the techlash. Mainly driven by the revelations of Facebook’s yearlong laissez-faire with personal data and Cambridge Analytica’s abuse of it. Google, however, worries that they are next, and there is a good reason for … Read More
Analysis. By relying on data profiling and even more data predictions, we risk loosing our human senses and intuition. We risk replacing fundamental human skills with data analysis and machine learning. It is easy and convenient, and it is already … 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
Activity tracking technologies, also known as wearables, are technologies that track your every step, pulse, pace, active minutes and even sleep. Data from these devices are not only used for good but can be misused to learn about individual health … Read More
Blog. Anything that can be predicted will be predicted. Such were the words in one of many events in Davos during World Economic Forum 2019. Artificial intelligence, privacy and ethics and data for good use were among the hot topics … Read More
Blog. For each year passing by more children are getting online, and younger children are spending more and more of their day online. A new study from the UK Children’s Commissioner is on a very important mission: To kickstart thoughts … Read More
The field of data ethics has become a campsite for different interests. Private companies and public institutions. Let’s choose a data ethics that takes point of departure in the interests of people. Data ethics is fashionable. So ultramodern that Gartner … Read More
Blog. Learning processes and tests at schools and universities are typically highly personal. Therefore in the past, these data have not been shared. Now, researchers at The Technical University of Denmark, have found a way to share these data without … Read More
Blog. The word trust is often used in discussions about data ethics. But what is the relation between trust and ethics? Which values are inviolable and worth fighting for? In ethics and moral theory it is common to distinguish between … Read More
Blog. Report from the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. Big tech, capitalising big on other peoples’ data, were scolded. Others hit the roof talking about saving democracy and humanity. Facebook has at least 11 ways of … Read More
Blog. Many might assume that their freedom of speech is protected online. The internet is a global structure connecting us all, and to many it might seem like a public space, but the social platforms we use to communicate with … Read More
DataEthics.eu is invited to participate in the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners Debating Ethics. We are part of a Creative Café involving ‘specially invited knowledge holders’ discussing ‘How To Move Forward In Digital Ethics?’ Below are … Read More
Blog. Third party audits and a global committee to approve of (new use of) new technologies to make sure global human right and ethical principles are respected. Those are two of the concrete suggestions coming out of a global governance … Read More
Blog. Google’s plan of building a neighborhood in Toronto is moving forward. Until recently, urban planning was done by public authorities where the public had a right to know what was going on. These days might be over. There is … 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
Blog. Do you want to know, if a service sits on your personal data and what it does with it? With one click you can ask more than 60 of the bigger companies instead of writing them one by one. … 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
Translation of the chapter (written in 2017) from the book Eksponeret (Danish, Gads Forlag, May 2018). Citation: Hasselbalch G., “AI: The Data Ethics Perspective”, translation from Eksponeret, Gads Forlag, 2018. Artificial intelligent technologies are complex data processing systems that pose several ethical … Read More
Book Chapter. Profiling through cookies, IP addresses, apps, device fingerprinting and data brokers is getting more advanced, as are new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, using microchips and sensors integrated into our homes, cars and cities. Everything we do online … Read More
Analysis. The most common tool in the most common business model of the Internet, is cookie tracking. Some visionary companies are showing the data ethics way with no cookies or with privacy-by-design cookies, and as users realize how easy it … Read More
Blog. Will you pay with money to read news, or are you okay with paying with your opinions? These are two options the Dutch start-up, the Playwall, offers media companies to obtain more users and income – and become less … Read More
Why does Snowden use Jitsi? I spoke to Emil Ivov, Chief Video Architect at Atlassian and the original author of Jitsi, about the upbringings of this project and its most used solutions: Jitsi Meet and meet.jit.si. We touched on building … Read More
The Danish company Spiir helps individuals make sense of their financial transaction. Financial personal data type is utterly valuable in today’s times in which whole industries depend on thorough risk assessments. Because of its importance in decreasing financial risks, this … Read More
INTERVIEW. With cloud computing being the sector developing most in the IT industry, close to all Europeans have their data hosted by a cloud storage service. Surely a high percentage of this article’s readers already know that in reality there … Read More
Book. Regulation, competitive innovation, social responsibility, worker and consumer choice and education are the five magic bullets on how to solve the current digital trust crisis, according to an excellent book from Andrew Keen; ‘How To Fix the Future’. As … Read More
Blog. Facebook’s ‘Custom Audience’ gives you access to new customers that look like you current customers – it gives you ‘lookalikes’ and it is the most powerful weapon in the Facebook ads arsenal. According to a former Facebook product manager; … Read More
Data protection impact assessments (DPIA), also referred to as Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA), are compulsory under the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But ensuring an organization or business’ data protection compliance now and in the future is the … Read More
Analysis. Ethics, privacy, regulation, accountability and the survival of humanity were major issues at this year’s World Economic Forum 2018 in Davos, which ended on Friday, January 26th. It was all about data and the many possibilities, and especially the … Read More
The Danish company Edulab has prepared a customer data promise as a set of data ethical guidelines and an understandable privacy policy, telling users what they do and don’t do with their data. A role model which most services targeted … Read More
Blog. There are multiple opportunities for the future workplace, when it comes to using data. ISS, the Danish cleaning service and facility management company, is an interesting case. Due to privacy laws in Europe, the global company is reluctant to … Read More
Analysis. The big data challenge in 2018 in will be to maintain digital trust. In government, in companies and in each other. In Europe, new groundbreaking privacy rules are in place that ensure the individual’s right to control his own … Read More
Analysis. We are about to outsource the human brain to the computer without having a debate about where we set the limits. Has human and human authority climaxed, and are we heading into a post-human era where artificial intelligent robots … Read More
Blog. Most social media and apps know that they have many children on their services, but they refrain from any responsibility by requiring that you have to be 13 years in their terms which almost no one reads when signing … Read More
Blog. Should all vulnerable infrastructure, products for babies and children and artificial body parts be digitized and be online in the future? Or are there areas that should not be a 100% digitized? Technological development dictates; digitize. But may be … Read More
BLOG: Artificial intelligent technologies are complex digital data processing systems that create a number of data ethical challenges. In a chapter for a forthcoming (2018) Danish book, I consider these challenges and ask that we consider the data density of the … Read More
BLOG: If we want to design ethical AI that benefits a human evolution, we need a way of talking about it that respects our human values and quirks. AI is everywhere. And nowhere. Because what do we actually mean when we talk … Read More
Blog. Have you ever experienced that you have talked to someone about something, and then got an advertisement for it without having typed in anything online concerning that topic? More and more do get that experience, as some apps listen … Read More
Blog: The European Data Protection Regulation is going to apply to processing of personal data across Europe as of 25 May 2018. All companies, authorities, organizations etc. are trying very hard these days to bring themselves in a position, where … Read More
Blog. Some companies have begun to exploiting that individuals have become transparent due to constant tracking of our online behaviour. They feed us with offers and prices, which are more to their own advantage than their customers’. Tools for digital … Read More
A 15 year old boy went viral. Making and sharing a 15 second music video on the hugely popular online service Musical.ly, lip syncing and gesturing with what appears to be his dying grandfather in the background. ‘What’s up with … Read More
by Francesco Lapenta, www.beingdigital.org Technologies have traditionally been approached as ancillary tools in the history of mankind. Means used to master nature and our environment, or tools used to enhance creativity and communication. This once clear distinction between us humans, … Read More
Analysis. In order to find out what cures a disease, one has to first figure what are its causes. My thesis’ first part was concerned with putting the diagnose – What kills democracy when political debate happens online, on Facebook? … Read More
Blog. Employees in most companies and organisations use the browsers that are preinstalled on their work devices – that is probably Chrome, Safari or Explorer. Some add an additional option themselves like Firefox or Opera. However, few people know that … Read More
Blog. A number of companies market themselves with their approach to customers’ data and privacy and differentiate themselves from multinational data giants. One of the better examples that has built a brand that is synonymous with privacy is Apple. One … Read More
By Anna Lykke Lundholm-Andersen Blog. In my first contribution to DataEthics I accused the data industry for having harvested our most precious information to an extend that only benefits the data industry since the commercial birth of the Internet 25 … Read More
by Anna Lykke Lundholm-Andersen Blog. For decades we have entrusted a data industry our personal information. That trust has been violated by the very same industry. Companies taking privacy protection seriously and valuing the trustful relation with their consumers will … Read More
Your online life is one of the most attractive things for advertisers to track. Everything you read, write, search for or the videos you watch and the music you listen to is done online. And you don’t see what data the services you use stores about you. Therefore, it can be nice to have a … Read More
Analysis. Laws are not enough. We need ethically driven innovation in the Age of Intelligent Machines, was one of the key conclusions of the CPDP. Here is first a summation of the intervention at one of the panels (Ethics, Observational … Read More
Blog. Blockchain, ethics and AI, robotics and ethics, and a human manifesto. These are some of the take aways DataEthics.eu took back from a week in January in Davos, where the global elite gathered for World Economic Forum 2017. “The … Read More
Blog. Our lives are lived in data. Data crossing borders and connected in virtual space. Most often, it appears, we live in open and too easily accessible data networks. States and corporations are watching us through data, and we are … Read More
Published first in the Daily Dot 23rd October 2016. How come Facebook knows that I have a mother with Alzheimer’s, a woman asked the other day. She was sure that she hadn’t provided the social medium with such sensitive information. … Read More
Blog. A group of start-ups is trying to change the digital infrastructure from multinational control of personal data to individual control of our own data. It is so new and it’s called everything from Personal Data Stores, the My Data … Read More
The ‘MyData Movement’ came off the ground this week in Helsinki. With the conference MyData2016 we are seeing the beginning of a paradigm shift, where corporate control of personal data will begin shifting to individual data control. ‘The Person is … Read More
Blog. Danish companies want to offer more personalized advertising. They are asking for a revision of a payment services act, which is fair enough, as it will ensure fair competition with global services who can use our credit card data … Read More
Blog. “Algorithms you get me like no other”. A person is leaning into a hole in an otherwise empty plain wall. Outside is a big sky with billions of distant stars. “30 songs you didn’t know you loved yet”, continues … Read More
Blog. With some big data companies twisting and even abusing privacy terms, we need to be very careful in distinguishing the true privacy and data ethical companies and practices from those who are clearly ‘privacy washing’ or in a nicer … Read More
By Marianne Steen & Pernille Tranberg Blog. The discussion about the dissemination and sharing of nude photos of children and adults have a good explanation. The vast majority of people have no idea what it means to be a public … Read More
Blog. How will self-driving cars change transportation and our cities, who is to blame in an accident, are they creepy or not. The newspaper Information hosted an exciting event at Science Day, 25.04.2016. Below are selected highlights. Mette Møller, DTU: … Read More
Blog. Investors are pouring money into apps that allow women to track their fertility. This can be good for couples wanting to control when to get pregnant and for science. But there are huge privacy pitfalls here, as we are … Read More
How will machines know what we value if we don’t know ourselves? This is the central question for John C. Havens’ new book, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines coming out in 2016.
BLOG. Big data may provide us with new knowledge and insights. With the gigantous collection of big data, we can access large amounts of data from a variety of sources and with high velocity – even real time data – … Read More
Blog. CPDP2016 is over. The best conference in Europe on privacy and data ethics took place from Wednesday to Friday – 27th-29th – in Brussels. Below a few highlights, but most of the sessions will be shown here on Youtube … Read More
Blog: The city is connected to the Internet. We used to connect ourselves online with specifically dedicated devices (computers and later the mobile), but today there are virtually no limits to the things that connect us when we move around … Read More
Blog: Do you give your customers a right to see what data you have on them? Can they ask to correct this data or have it erased? And do you tell them that you don’t sell their data to third … Read More
(Image from the Ethics of Algorithms project, Center for Internet and Human Rights) Blog: How can we question the ethics of a service if we don’t have access to the details of how it is designed to act on data? … Read More
Blog: Eric Salamar from Kantar: Companies, who find big data easiest, are new companies with no legacy. Those who have one login and have a direct relationship with their customers are better off but legacy companies are coming along …… What is … Read More
Analysis: Toy manufacturers are today creating intelligent toys that remember, find patterns and respond to data from children. We need a data ethical approach to innovation in the development of an “Internet of Things” for children.
Blog: “If it’s free then you are the product”. This statement normally applies to consumers paying for online services with their data. Another version of this is developers using big industry machine learning technologies for free to build and create … Read More
While US companies and the US government fear the consequences of the Safe Harbour ruling of the European Court of Justice, the European companies should be optimistic. In the short term the ruling can cause confusion, but in the longer term it … Read More
Analysis: The evolution from one type of society to another has effected an interpretation of the right to privacy in an online context.In 1992 the public gained access to the former Eastern Germany secret service Stasi archives. They consisted of 180 kilometers … Read More