1. Ethics and Responsibility

2. 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

3. Ethical Considerations
Privacy
Data security
Accuracy
Research

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

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

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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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 )
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA )
On the Impact of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
Kirsten Wahlstrom and John F. Roddick

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

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