The Forum on Information and Democracy has published a report of on how to fix infodemics. Based on more than 100 contributions from international experts, it offers 250 recommendations on how to rein in a phenomenon that threatens democracies and … Read More
Every time we click and swipe our way through the internet, our data is being collected in ways that are not visible or incomprehensible for us – the users. Data sits in all the veins of digital services and is … Read More
Academic AI researchers receive quite extensive financial support from big tech, according to several articles and studies. 58% of faculty at four prominent universities have received grants, fellowship, or other financial support from Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Nividia, … 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
“Dear Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, We represent a diverse coalition of interest groups and individuals calling on you to end targeted, ‘behavioural’ advertising to children on your sites, and the tracking which underpins it”. These are the opening … Read More
In Denmark, when you turn 65, you’re supposed to get a visit from the municipality if you need it. The purpose is to assess your living situation and find out if you need any help, be it home care or preventive programs from the public authorities. When you … Read More
Data ethics are on the agenda in an increasing number of organisations. This means that consideration is given to the ethical justification of how data and personal data are handled. In addition to the legal frameworks, the desirability of data … Read More
With a so-called Child YouTuber Law, France are showing the way towards protecting our children from digital child labour. Child influencers – often run by their parents – is a growing phenonomen. For years children have been protected by law towards child labour within legislation worldwide. UN … Read More
Analysis. Products and services, which try to embed privacy and work ethically responsible with data, are finally progressing. It is uphill to compete with monopoly tech’s convenient and dirt cheap or ‘free’ products, but more and more individuals seem to … Read More
Ethics procedures are a core component of any AI innovation and research. It is essential that we do not undermine this during the Covid19 crisis. Europe still needs to deliver on its “Trustworthy AI agenda”. Most of us know the … Read More
Trained birds, especially pigeons, have a long history in espionage practices. A Dutch Company, called the Drone Bird Company, found a new way of using birds, well not actual birds, in order to get an overview of a situation or … Read More
US antitrust authorities have slept for at least a decade when it come to tech. But something may be looming. The US Justice Department might be on its way with cases against two monopolies, Google and Amazon. Meanwhile, both the … Read More
Written by David Oehlenschläger, trauma psychologist and Mie Oehlenschläger, external lecturer, New Media. Recently news media reported a story about a suicide video that was displayed on several social media platforms such as TikTok and Facebook. The video was originally … Read More
Children interact with or are impacted by AI systems that are not designed for them, and current policies do not address this, according to a new UNICEF draft policy guidance report on children and AI. AI systems are increasingly being … Read More
Michele Gilman a professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law has written a report for poverty lawyers explaining the consequences of data-centric technologies in America. The report covers seven areas were algorithms can cause discrimination and … 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
The Chinese are coming. Beware! The Trump government is warning everybody against digital services like TikTok, because it is, he says, stealing American data. What he does not say is that he and American big tech are deeply worried about … Read More
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is currently drafting a general comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment. The document falls under the Rights of the Child – the most ratified human rights treaty in … Read More
Sitra, the Finnish independent innovation fund, who invests in a fair and sustainable future, believes that Europe must work more fiercely towards fair data economy, and that GDPR is not enough. In a new report “On the trail of personal … 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
Massive Online Meetings (MOMs) have many new advantages but also many new tracking possibilities. Participants can potentially be tracked constantly through the whole duration of the event. By Ferenc Borondics & Jesse McCrosky The COVID-19 pandemic and our collective response … Read More
At the end of May 202, the company Cleardox held a webinar looking into GDPR two years after. Jakob Kamby from Kammeradvokaten, Allan Frank from the Danish DPA, Stephen Alstrup, Superwiz/Copenhagen Univerisity and Pernille Tranberg, DataEthics.eu, participated. Here is the … 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 internet was originally designed without an identity layer, which means, that even tough two devices can connect and interact online, it is difficult to guarantee that the one you are interacting with is who they claim to be. It … Read More
During the last year the video sharing platform TikTok has become very popular. And according to Euronews TikTok’s popularity spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the app being the second-most installed application in April 2020 worldwide, with more than 107 … Read More
The World Federation of Advertisers, WFA, has launched a guide to its members on how they can go the data ethics way. It comes at a time where doing the right thing is becoming more of a must have that … Read More
Social media have a lot of issues to resolve, must live up to all laws and remove content that is unlawful. But social media is not traditional media, who is regulated by media law and press ethics. That is why … Read More
Julia Sommer attended a webinar recently (May 15th 2020) discussing the Corona app. She summarised it in scribing. Click on the picture or the link under the picture to enlarge. Overview Sune Lehmann Rikke Frank Jørgensen Stinus Lindgren & Conclusion … Read More
March 16th 2020 The Netherlands went into a semi-lock down. Schools and universities had to close because of the strict regulations to prevent the Covid-19 from spreading. Universities had to make a quick transition to digital alternatives in order to … 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
While isolation preserves us from the pandemic, it makes us especially vulnerable to the effects of the infodemic. In a context that has brought our offline lives to the online wires, we are all exposed to being constantly tested by … Read More
By Lara Friedel, Bella Hintergard, Javier Lede Intro Algorithms are progressively shaping more and more aspects of our lives. The evolution of this issue leads the need to raise an urgent debate on the ethical use of data. We are … 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
Access Now, an international non-profit group that advocates for human rights online, have formulated 26 human right-centered recommendations for content governance, based on ideals of freedom, openness and democratic values. The following is an abstract of the problems identified by … Read More
By Francesco Lapenta, professor and director of John Cabot University Institute of Future and Innovation Studies in Rome Analysis. The early response to a unique, but not unprecedented or unpredictable global biological crisis has been chaotic, profoundly un-collaborative and characterized … Read More
Over a 100 years ago, the US company Pullman produced railroad cars and wanted to place a factory 10 miles outside the city center. It built a city around the factory premises, where all the workers could live and thus … Read More
Over the last couple of years, many companies, institutions, governments and ethicists have proposed their own principles for the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in an ethical way. Most of the guidelines include principles about fairness, accountability and transparency, but … Read More
A lot of confusion about the term’s roots, history and disciplinary approaches is clouding the current debate. Is it “ethics washing”? Is it misappropriation of a term? Who “owns” the term? The popularity of the term “data ethics” exploded in … Read More
The Danish ARKEN Museum of Modern Art is not doing what many others are doing these days. Choosing new digital tools out of convenience and speediness. Arken has had ethical thoughts before choosing their new webinar tool in their digital … 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
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
Is it okay to participate in the criticized ad tech system, when your service is dealing with such sensitive data as women’s fertility data? For the German-founded privacy-focused start-up Clue, it is a constant balance between being user-friendly and private … 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
Review. Change for the better is difficult. But there is a good chance that it will become easier after reading the “The Ethical Design Handbook” by Trine Falbe Kim Andersen and Martin Michael Frederiksen. Read it if you are in … 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
The strategy is ambitious on advancing the European AI uptake and taking back control over a European data space. But it lacks ambition when creating the conditions for a thriving ethical and trustworthy AI and data space. On 19th February … Read More
In a town in the southern part of the Netherlands a futuristic neighbourhood is about to be built. ‘BrainPort SmartDistrict’ will be a neighbourhood for citizens of the future. In this analysis I explain how the project was criticized for not embedding privacy and putting the residents at the center – and then how the project changed focus. But despite a new focus, there are still many ethical questions to be asked and discussed – the most important being: It is desired? … 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
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
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
“Big Tech manipulates Academia in order to avoid regulation”, claims Rodrigo Ochigame in a recent article in The Intercept. But maybe the headline ought to be: “Big Tech buys Academia in order to avoid regulation”? It started back in 2016 … Read More
What if we individuals had a platform where we could access and control of all our health data; from medical investigations to the data collected by our wearables and health apps. A Dutch lawyer is proposing such a platform, but … 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
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
As with most other telcos, Telefonica is looking for new business models, as their old model is becoming extinguished. Privacy and security is one area, where the Spanish telco is investing and seeing new opportunities. For over a year, it … 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
Every week the world experiences a new story about the dilemmas in implementing data ethics within the tech industry. It´s becoming a hot topic, and many tech companies have acknowledged that the term data ethics is a parameter in business … 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
The Germans are ahead of other countries when it comes to data ethics and responsible use of data and AI. The government established a Data Ethics Commission in 2018 and has published and opinion on data ethics covering both data … 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
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
“Careful and transparent consideration should always be given to the questions of why, for whom, when, and how transitions to digital systems take place”, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, states in a report that was … 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
In 1996 David Brin published a thought experiment on Wired. During an evening in Hamburg I discussed this thought experiment, but I wouldn’t have thought that only a day later arriving in Copenhagen for the Data Ethics Forum, this thought … 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
No way should we let machines and data take over from humans in health care. But we should let machines assist us in the hard work, where they are better than humans. The overriding question is; how much control and … 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
Research. Dark patterns are increasingly common on digital platforms including social media websites, shopping websites, mobile apps, and video game. The design is everything from annoying to deceiving. New report from Princeton University on how to trick users into giving … 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
The GDPR emphasize that when processing data, the design of systems, apps etc must support the principles of fundamental data protection, including the principle of data minimisation. Many games and free apps have previously tracked all kinds of data about … 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
“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
If individuals control their own data, they control their own lives and neither government nor big companies can manipulate us economically or politically. There is a long way to go for that, but there is a growing movement around ‘my … 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
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
Analysis. Late April 2019, Denmark was blessed with the formation of a Data Ethics Board. We were many who perhaps was a bit dazzled by this and may have lowered our guards a bit. However, at the exact same time, … 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
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
