ETHICS & DATADiscussing, teaching, enacting

The sheer amount of data we are generating is pretty insane

❖ Banks!

❖ Gyms!

❖ Student loans!

❖ Insurance companies!

❖ Health care providers!

❖ EZPass!

❖ T-Pass!

❖ Tech support calls!

❖ Public records - Birth, Marriage, Death, Sale of property, Legal proceedings!

❖ Public Surveillance Cameras!

❖ Future/Now: IoT, Wearables, DashboardCams, CopCams, Drones, Microlocation devices

Data is the method of the powerful, who have resources to acquire, store and make sense of large quantities of data.

Many data practices are closed, extractive and centralized

individuals communities

Corporate Databases, Data Brokers, Government, INGOs

NSA

Open Data Movement - hope for more widely distributed access to data and know-how

CHALLENGES FOR OPEN DATA

• Most corporate data & government data still not open. Many “accountability” data sets notably missing from open data. (Open Data Barometer report)

• Data that you need doesn’t exist because it’s not in anyone’s interest to collect it (police killings)

• Anonymized and aggregated data can be rematched to create personally identifiable information (AOL incident, Science/MIT Media Lab research, NYC Taxis and Celebrities)

• Risk of data retained forever - not sensitive now but could be sensitive in future.

• Data literacy gap to translate data into civic practices.

Often, just opening data is not enough. We see troubling cases of possible misuse of data.

❖ Target teenage pregnancy - Should corporate practices be able to bypass HIPAA regulations?!

❖ Predictive Parole - Should algorithms and personal data help determine parole?!

❖ The Mugshot Industry - Should public data feed into public shaming? Is this a violation of “innocent until proven guilty”?!

❖ Gun owners & the Journal News - Should journalists be able to publish gun owners’ home addresses?!

❖ 538 reports on “Nigerian Kidnappings” - Yikes. Even data journalists get things really, really wrong sometimes.!

❖ “Doxing” - Should we have consequences for doxing, which often uses public data to shame, harass or bully an individual?

WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO TEACH JOURNALISM STUDENTS ABOUT DATA

& ETHICS?

WHAT I WANT THEM TO LEARN

!

• Case studies to see nuance

• Data comes from material practices

• Ecosystem of personal data

• Data doesn’t have all the answers

• Privacy concerns, protecting self and sources, assessing risk now and into the future

• Nuts and bolts of tools (end-to-end encryption, deleting data securely, etc.)

CONTEXT• Journalism Undergrads and Grads

• Professionally oriented, Like learning practical skills

• Media savvy but not “techies”

• They will read but I have to emphasize that they will need to “perform” the reading in some way in class

• Class is studio-based; Prefer activities & projects to lectures & theory

• Limited class time