Ethics and Data Science

by Mike Loukides

Users want to engage with companies and organizations they can trust not to take unfair advantage of them. Users want to deal with companies that will treat them and their data responsibly, not just as potential profit or engagement to be maximized.

“treat others’ data as you would have others treat your own data.”

Five framing guidelines help us think about building data products. We call them the five Cs: consent, clarity, consistency, control (and transparency), and consequences (and harm).

Combining data sets frequently gives results that are much more powerful and dangerous than anything you might get from either data set on its own.