SDA 270 tackles ethical issues in social data analytics

Analyzing data is only one of the skills required to generate meaningful results from social data. For ethically gathered data deployed without causing harm, social data analysts need to be aware of current ethics and privacy issues surrounding collection, analysis and interpretation of big data sets.

In order to fully equip students to tackle these concerns in a pro-active manner, SDA 270: Data, Ethics and Society introduces students to the ethical, legal and privacy issues surrounding the collection and use of big data. It will also illustrate how not attending to these issues can impact vulnerable populations.

But why should students working with data care about ethics? Surely, it’s all about gathering enough data and conducting a robust analysis with a decent p value?

Speaking with Department of Philosophy professor, Chelsea Rosenthal it’s clear that ethics and specifically privacy issues are essential factors when dealing with social data analytics.

“We need to ask ourselves,” says Rosenthal, explaining the overall emphasis behind SDA 270, “does our analysis focus on what’s going to help us achieve valuable goals, and are we achieving those goals in a way that overlooks something of ethical importance?”

Rosenthal will be examining data, ethics and society. Among other topics, she’ll be looking at privacy—why it’s valuable and why it matters. Covering informed consent and disclosure, this topic will look at the interplay between privacy and how safeguarding the individual affects innovation. She will also be asking students to consider what is accomplished by protecting privacy when involved in social data analytics.

“Traditionally, ethical research requires that participants give informed consent for the use of their data, but with large-scale, population-level data, meaningful, informed consent may not be possible – and some scholars argue that it’s also not enough to prevent abuse.  If that’s the case, what does adequately protecting privacy look like?” she asks. 

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