Data ethics

CUSP aims to utilize Big Data to help study and understand urban environments. As a part of this effort, we are planning to build an inclusive data warehouse at CUSP. Our vision for this data warehouse is to hold large quantities of data from multiple sources, including personal (most likely anonymized) data about individuals. But, obtaining, housing, and protecting these data come with many challenges and questions. We hope to answer some of these questions in this working session and converge on a set of principles that will guide our data practices moving forward. Personal data is a new asset class touching all aspects of society. It is potentially as valuable a resource in the 21st century as heavily traded physical goods like oil have been in the past hundred years. However, throughout history, economic value creation has been linked to the ability to move and trade physical goods. Similarly, " data needs to move to create value. Data sitting alone on a server is like money hidden under a mattress. It is safe and secure, but largely stagnant and underutilized. " But, personal data lacks the trading rules and policy frameworks that exist for widely traded physical assets. As a result, there is little trust among the key stakeholders,-individuals, governments and the private sector,-which could undermine its long-term potential. In response to surveys, individuals generally say that they want enhanced control over their personal data, increased transparency on how it is used, and some kind of fair value in return. However, their actions are often quite different. While many say they care deeply about privacy, they share information quite widely online. They often sign up for services not knowing how their data will be protected or whether it will be shared. They rarely read the privacy policies of the organizations providing these services, which are usually written in hard-to-comprehend legal language. Companies, on the other hand, view the data they have captured or created about individuals as theirs. Data is an asset on which they have invested significant resources. They want to leverage the data to create business value, better understand the behavior of their customers and help themselves become more productive. They struggle with how to best protect all the data they now have access to, as well as trying to figure out the different regulations pertaining to its use. Governments are trying to leverage all this data …