E-SIDES - Ethical and societal implications of Data Science

Introduction

The main objective of the Coordination and Support Action e-SIDES is to complement the research on privacy-preserving big data technologies, by analysing, mapping and clearly identifying the main societal and ethical challenges emerging from the adoption of big data technologies, conforming to the principles of responsible research and innovation; setting up and organizing a sustainable dialogue between industry, research and social actors, as well as networking with the main Research and Innovation Actions and Large Scale Pilots and other framework programme projects interested in these issues.

Who is the project designed for?

The main stakeholder segments targeted indicatively include:

• Public Sector: this includes governments and policy makers at the EU, national and regional/local level: the starting list includes representatives of the national Data Protection Authorities, of the national big data research programs, of open data public portals, but also of PPPs, for example engaged in smart cities or Industry 4.0 plans.
• Industry: this will include representatives of ICT vendors, of leading ICT users and start-ups or SMEs, selected from IDC’s lists of contacts, the several hundred actors active in the EU Data Landscape online portal managed on behalf of the European Data Market project as well as the database of Europe-headquartered data economy actors maintained within the scope of the EuDEco project.
• Industry and professional associations: through multiplier organizations with an EU presence and national members and associates. Through the EU secretary generals and coordinators of these associations, we will be able to reach out to a representative sample of national and local actors active in privacy-related issues. The partners are also well connected with the Big Data Value Association.
• Civil society: consumers associations, NGOs, special needs associations, organisations engaged in the support of immigrants, ethnic minorities (for the discrimination issues, for example).

How is your project benefitting the end-user?

In order to strengthen the position of Europe as a provider of products and services, advances in key industrial ecosystems, particularly with regard to big data technologies, are required for the data value chain, the content value chain and the knowledge value chain. These objectives require confidence of citizens towards big data technologies and data markets.

The data value chain requires a willingness to share and use data. e-SIDES is based on the assumption that improving the dialogue between data subjects and big data communities will improve confidence in big data technologies. 

This sums up the two main goals of e-SIDES, i.e., to realise appropriate consideration and attention for ethical and societal issues in big data technologies and to improve the dialogue between data subjects and big data communities and, thereby, to improve the confidence of citizens towards big data technologies and data markets.

Please briefly describe the results your project achieved so far

e-SIDES has successfully delivered 4 workshops, and produced the following deliverables and outputs:

• Common Glossary of the key terminology
• Refined Research Framework: serving as an initial research framework of the project, laying foundations for the further activities within e-SIDES. The idea behind such framework is to obtain the common ground regarding the key concepts to be applied, the scope of the project and its main goals.
• Lists of ethical, legal, societal and economic issues of big data technologies: identifying and analysing the most relevant ethical, legal, societal and economic issues implicated by the development of big data technologies. With this purpose in mind, each distinctive perspective approaches the technological innovation brought about by big data technologies from a different angle.
• Overview of Existing Technologies: Providing insights into the existing approaches, methods and technologies that may have the potential to address ethical, legal, societal and economic issues raised by big data applications. Among the issues are threats to privacy and self-determination, strong interdependencies, limited trustworthiness and lack of accountability.
• White papers from the key deliverables for dissemination.
• Interviews with projects of the BDV PPP
• Presentations at external events and workshops

What are the next steps for your project?

e-SIDES will attend and coordinate a session at the next BDVe Meet-up on May 14th. A key deliverable and white paper on the assessment of existing privacy-preserving big data technologies will be published in the next weeks. For each of the technologies identified, the impact is assessed. An assessment is made of the extent to which they may avoid or mitigate ethical and legal issues.