Ethics and Responsibility

Definitions Etiology Ethics Morals Greek "ethos" meaning "character" Latin Moral "mos" meaning "custom" Ethics The rules that govern what is right and what is wrong for a person to do Morals The principles of right and wrong based on a standard (society or religion), on which ethics are based Ethics: A set of rules that govern behavior; A set of moral principles or values; the science of morality; a branch of Philosophy Morals: Some equate morals and ethics

Ethical Considerations Privacy Data security Accuracy Research

Technology and Ethics Ethical considerations follow technological innovations Stick & stones Nuclear fission Information technology File sharing Passwords Data storage

Codes of Ethics ACM Code of Ethics IEEE Code of Ethics Medical Code of Ethics Manataka American Indian Council Greek Fraternity Code of Ethics

Application of Ethics Ethics implies social considerations Involves Privacy Data security Accuracy Research

DI and Privacy Large files may contain private information Data could be used long after its original collection date Data could be used beyond its collection purpose The purpose of knowledge discovery may not be known until some pattern is revealed in the data The information revealed by DI may be inappropriate

Protecting Privacy Privacy is contextual and a based on individual perceptions so a global assurance of privacy cannot be achieved Steps to enhance privacy protection Anonymization of personal data Provide to the user a method to review their personal data that is to be used in DI and decide for themselves

Privacy The type and amount of information a person is willing to share defines their privacy Notion of privacy violation Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines – 1980 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA - 1974) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA - 1996) On the Impact of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Kirsten Wahlstrom and John F. Roddick

Problems with Privacy Current practices fall short of protecting privacy People are unaware of the need to communicate with data holders People must be assertive and proactive The government as Big Brother The Patriot Act

DI and Databases Two positions to consider: DI operations authorized by an individual or organization that hold full access to the data DI operations unauthorized to mine the data, but have access for other reasons

Protecting Databases Authorization Encryption Auditing Precautions Single level vs Multi-Level Security Encryption Auditing Precautions Mining only one security level can prevent inference from less sensitive data to more sensitive data Render the data useless for mining Introduction of noise in the data Introduction of instability in the data

DI and Data Accuracy DI uses data from many diverse, possibly external data sources Initial data quality cannot be known Noisy, obsolete, inaccurate, incomplete Expired data can lead to inaccurate patterns discovered

Data Accuracy Inaccuracies are difficult to correct Expired data is undetectable until a person is affected by applying the patterns discovered in the data Adopt data quality management Correct errors in data with expediency Frequent data cleaning

DI and Research Science is founded in truth and relies on ethical behavior in practice Clearly defined ethical guidelines for DI are not yet stated Consider ethical strategies for Data collection, data storage, retention, authorship, publication, supervision of students and research assistants, disclosure, misconduct rules Human subjects

User-defined Sensitivity Factors Reference: Wahlstrom K, Roddick J. On the Impact of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. 2nd Australian Institute of Computer Ethics Conference (AICE2000), Canberra, 2001. Users are the most qualified to qualify the sensitivity of their own data within context Provide users with a tool to specify sensitivity level when data is being collected Use sensitivity value with data in DI methods

DI Code of Ethics There isn’t one. Should there be?