DATA SCIENCE ETHICS

ETHICS

• Ethics is about the shared values and moral principles that govern our behavior in
society.

• Ethics is based not on laws but on widely accepted norms of what is "right vs.
wrong".

• However, ethical considerations can influence corporate governance initiatives

and government regulations that create more incentives for compliance.
 DATA ETHICS

• Data Ethics is a new branch of ethics that "studies and evaluates moral
problems related to data, algorithms and corresponding practices".

• Here, "data" focuses on actions related to generation, recording, curation,

processing, dissemination, sharing, and usage, "algorithms" focuses on AI,
agents, machine learning, and robots, and "practices" focuses on topics like
responsible innovation, programming, hacking, and ethics codes.
 APPLIED ETHICS

• Applied Ethics is the practical application of moral considerations.

• It's the process of actively investigating ethical issues in the context
of real-world actions, products and processes, and taking corrective
measures to make that these remain aligned with our defined ethical
values.
 ETHICS CULTURE

• Ethics Culture is about operationalizing applied ethics to make sure that our
ethical principles and practices are adopted in a consistent and scalable manner
across the entire organization.

• Successful ethics cultures define organization-wide ethical principles, provide

meaningful incentives for compliance, and reinforce ethics norms by
encouraging and amplifying desired behaviors at every level of the organization.
 ETHICS CONCEPTS
1. ETHICS PRINCIPLES
• Every data ethics strategy begins by defining ethical principles - the "shared values" that
describe acceptable behaviors, and guide compliant actions, in our data & AI projects.

• You can define these at an individual or team level.

• However, most large organizations outline these in an ethical AI mission statement or
framework that is defined at corporate levels and enforced consistently across all teams.
• Accountability makes practitioners responsible for their data & AI operations, and compliance with these
ethical principles.

• Transparency ensures that data and AI actions are understandable (interpretable) to users, explaining the what
and why behind decisions.

• Fairness - focuses on ensuring AI treats all people fairly, addressing any systemic or implicit socio-technical
biases in data and systems.

• Reliability & Safety - ensures that AI behaves consistently with defined values, minimizing potential harms or
unintended consequences.

• Privacy & Security - is about understanding data lineage, and providing data privacy and related
protections to users.

• Inclusiveness - is about designing AI solutions with intention, adapting them to meet a broad range of human
needs & capabilities.
 ETHICS CHALLENGE
• With data collection, actions will likely involve personal data or personally identifiable information
(PII) for identifiable living individuals.

• This includes diverse items of non-personal data that collectively identify an individual.

• Ethical challenges can relate to data privacy, data ownership, and related topics like informed
consent and intellectual property rights for users.

• With algorithm design, actions will involve collecting & curating datasets, then using them to train &
deploy data models that predict outcomes or automate decisions in real-world contexts.

• Ethical challenges can arise from dataset bias, data quality issues, unfairness ,and misrepresentation in
algorithms - including some issues that are systemic in nature.
1. DATA OWNERSHIP
• Data collection often involves personal data that can identify the data subjects.
Data ownership is about control and user rights related to the creation, processing
,and dissemination of data.

• Who owns the data? (user or organization)

• What rights do data subjects have? (ex: access, erasure, portability)
• What rights do organizations have? (ex: rectify malicious user reviews)
2. INFORMED CONSENT

• Informed consent defines the act of users agreeing to an action (like data
collection) with a full understanding of relevant facts including the purpose,
potential risks, and alternatives.

• Did the user (data subject) give permission for data capture and usage?
• Did the user understand the purpose for which that data was captured?
• Did the user understand the potential risks from their participation?
3. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

• Intellectual property refers to intangible creations resulting from the human

initiative, that may have economic value to individuals or businesses.

• Did the collected data have economic value to a user or business?

• Does the user have intellectual property here?
• Does the organization have intellectual property here?
• If these rights exist, how are we protecting them?
4. DATA PRIVACY

• Data privacy or information privacy refers to the preservation of user privacy and
protection of user identity with respect to personally identifiable information.

• Is users' (personal) data secured against hacks and leaks?

• Is users' data accessible only to authorized users and contexts?
• Is users' anonymity preserved when data is shared or disseminated?
• Can a user be de-identified from anonymized datasets?
5. RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

• The Right To Be Forgotten or Right to Erasure provides additional personal data

protection to users. Specifically, it gives users the right to request deletion or removal of
personal data from Internet searches and other locations, under specific circumstances -
allowing them a fresh start online without past actions being held against them.

• Does the system allow data subjects to request erasure?

• Should the withdrawal of user consent trigger automated erasure?
• Was data collected without consent or by unlawful means?
• Are we compliant with government regulations for data privacy?
6. DATASET BIAS

• Dataset or Collection Bias is about selecting a non-representative subset of data

for algorithm development, creating potential unfairness in result outcomes for
diverse groups. Types of bias include selection or sampling bias, volunteer bias,
and instrument bias.

• Did we recruit a representative set of data subjects?

• Did we test our collected or curated dataset for various biases?
• Can we mitigate or remove any discovered biases?
7. DATA QUALITY

• Data Quality looks at the validity of the curated dataset used to develop our
algorithms, checking to see if features and records meet requirements for the level
of accuracy and consistency needed for our AI purpose.

• Did we capture valid features for our use case?

• Was data captured consistently across diverse data sources?
• Is the dataset complete for diverse conditions or scenarios?
• Is information captured accurately in reflecting reality?
8. ALGORITHM FAIRNESS

• Algorithm Fairness checks to see if the algorithm design systematically

discriminates against specific subgroups of data subjects leading to
potential harms in allocation (where resources are denied or withheld from that
group) and quality of service (where AI is not as accurate for some subgroups as
it is for others).

• Did we evaluate model accuracy for diverse subgroups and conditions?

• Did we scrutinize the system for potential harms (e.g., stereotyping)?
• Can we revise data or retrain models to mitigate identified harms?
9. DATA MISREPRESENTATION

• Data Misrepresentation is about asking whether we are communicating insights

from honestly reported data in a deceptive manner to support a desired narrative.

• Are we reporting incomplete or inaccurate data?

• Are we visualizing data in a manner that drives misleading conclusions?
• Are we using selective statistical techniques to manipulate outcomes?
• Are there alternative explanations that may offer a different conclusion?
10. FREE CHOICE

• The Illusion of Free Choice occurs when system "choice architectures" use decision-
making algorithms to nudge people towards taking a preferred outcome while
seeming to give them options and control. These dark patterns can cause social and
economic harm to users. Because user decisions impact behavior profiles, these
actions potentially drive future choices that can amplify or extend the impact of
these harms.

• Did the user understand the implications of making that choice?

• Was the user aware of (alternative) choices and the pros & cons of each?
• Can the user reverse an automated or influenced choice later?
 APPLIED ETHICS

• PROFESSIONAL CODES
• ETHICS CHECKLISTS
• ETHICS REGULATIONS
• ETHICS CULTURE
1. PROFESSIONAL CODES
• Professional Codes offer one option for organizations to "incentivize" members
to support their ethical principles and mission statement.

• Codes are moral guidelines for professional behavior, helping employees or

members make decisions that align with their organization's principles.

• They are only as good as the voluntary compliance from members; however,
many organizations offer additional rewards and penalties to motivate compliance
from members.
2. ETHICS CHECKLISTS – Connect principles and practices

Example:

• Deon - a general-purpose data ethics checklist created from industry recommendations

with a command-line tool for easy integration.

• Privacy Audit Checklist - provides general guidance for information handling practices
from legal and social exposure perspectives.

• AI Fairness Checklist - created by AI practitioners to support the adoption and integration

of fairness checks into AI development cycles.

• 22 questions for ethics in data and AI - more open-ended framework, structured for initial
exploration of ethical issues in design, implementation, and organizational, contexts.
3. ETHICS REGULATIONS

Ethics is about defining shared values and doing the right

thing voluntarily. Compliance is about following the law if and where
defined. Governance broadly covers all the ways in which organizations operate to
enforce ethical principles and comply with established laws.
4. ETHICS CULTURE

• Note that there remains an intangible gap between compliance (doing enough to meet "the letter of the
law") and addressing systemic issues (like ossification, information asymmetry, and distributional
unfairness) that can speed up the weaponization of AI.

• The latter requires collaborative approaches to defining ethics cultures that build emotional
connections and consistent shared values across organizations in the industry.

• This calls for more formalized data ethics cultures in organizations - allowing anyone to
pull the Andon cord (to raise ethics concerns early in the process) and making ethical
assessments (e.g., in hiring) a core criteria team formation in AI projects.