Introduction
With the use of data becoming more widespread and organizations are relying on it much more it is important that we establish some guidelines for collecting, using, and benefiting from it – ethics. This is what the article “Ethics in Data Science and Proper Privacy and Usage of Data” by Prateek Majumder talks about(the link to the article is here).
Summary of Article
First, the article defines ethics – as the instruction of “good and wrong”. Then the article goes into why it is important in data science and reasons that since data science is involved in so many fields and when used incorrectly, it has grave potential dangers if used not in accordance with ethics. Next, the article goes into the benefits of using these data science algorithms: cost savings, scalability, speed, accuracy, and consistency. Then the article transitions into the world we are living in and how it is becoming ever more digital with increased data. This also comes with increased legislation on this data and data privacy for consumers and the article goes onto mention a bill in India that does just this. Then the article gets into some ethical practices of data: making decisions, privacy and confidentially of data, data ownership, intentions with data, and transparency. Starting off with making decisions the article stresses that no decision should be made without consulting the client first unless explicitly stated in your contract that you have the power to make that decision. Next onto privacy and confidentiality of data as well as data ownership, the article stresses that it is the responsibility of the data scientist to protect consumers’ data, and only until they consent to it being shared should it be shared to protect people’s privacy. After the article gets into the intentions with data: they should always be good and you should be transparent with the user as much as you possibly can. Finally, the article gets into some real-life examples of how data was not used ethically and how it resulted in catastrophic problems such as the OK Cupid data release and the Robinhood Data Breach. Then to contrast the article gets into some positives where data was used such as to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, the article concludes with how important it is to use ethics when dealing with data and how useful data can be when dealt with ethically.
My Take
Overall, this article was a good one. It was easy to read due to its use of headers and bolded text. Also, the use of real-world examples made it more intriguing. However, the lack of pictures made this article seem mundane. I really liked the way the author explained the concepts within this article – they were very understandable. Lastly, the use of contrast within this article(such as real-world examples that turned out badly when ethics with regards to data wasn’t used correctly followed by the opposite scenario) also made it much more entertaining to read.
Conclusion
All in all, this article was a good one. I really enjoyed its easiness of reading and use of real-world examples. However, its lack of pictures hindered the article. Overall, I highly recommend you read the article(linked here).