Data is the new oil - Data Ethics

In the digital era, data is often hailed as the new oil. This comparison, however, ignores that data – unlike oil – is not something that nature provides. Instead it is something that is curated by people, and often supported by infrastructures and technologies in and from the public domain.

No wonder, then, that the “data as oil” metaphor rubs some people the wrong way: it wrongly suggests that the companies use the data, and not the people from whom the data comes, have a moral – or even legal – right to own it.

• But what do people want?
• How do people want their data, including their medical and DNA information, want to be used?

Data ethics as a new branch of ethics that studies and evaluates moral problems related to data, algorithms, and corresponding practices, in order to formulate and support morally good solutions.

In this workshop Barbara will draw upon studies into people’s views and preferences of data use, and on bioethical debates, to answer these questions.