Applying digital ethics to government and public services
Prof. Andrew McStay and Dr. Gilad Rosner (IoT Privacy Forum/Liminal) teamed to consider digital ethics in context of government and public services in Wales (report here). Funded by the 2022 Welsh Data Nation Accelerator programme and through engagement with Welsh Government, they developed:
A primer on ethics and digital ethics
Understanding of ‘digital well-being’ as a useful framing tool for Wales
Analysis of the norms and values of the Well-being for Future Generations Act in context of the UN sustainability development goals and the Precautionary Principle
Distillation of those norms and values into technology governance imperatives
Practical activities to maximise national well-being goals
A review of a survey of nationally segmented British attitudes toward government use of technology and personal data
A set of resources to further explore digital ethics and well-being
They started by analysing key ethical frameworks from the around the world but soon found that moral guidance, in addition to existing law, could be found in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Those outside of Wales are unlikely to be familiar with it, but it is unique in being a highly moral piece of legislation that builds for the future. Oddly though there is no mention of data or technology in it, which provided the team opportunity to build what the saw as the missing piece of the Act.
The project was also fascinating because public service data ethics problems are tricky. While headline maxims of fairness, accountability, transparency and non-maleficence are worthy values, they are not always helpful in handling problems where there are multiple pressures and competing “good” values. This meant that in addition to Welsh normative values, they engaged closely with applied ethics and the practicalities of decision-making
In addition to normative and applied ethics work, they conducted a UK-wide survey (with a focus on Wales) on attitudes to public services and use of citizen data by these groups. This created a few surprising results, especially on willingness to share data among public services (with implications regarding the UK Digital Economy Act 2017) and use of urban sensors. They also found strong appetite for a precautionary approach to use of citizen data. Need to avoid unexpected uses of data was also key, meaning that there is need for meaningful engagement with citizenry. There was also a strong indication that UK and Wales citizens both believe that government has a strong role to play in protecting future generations regarding the development of technology and technology markets.
