Privacy & Data Ethics Flashcards

An organization uses an algorithm to screen job applications and discovers it disproportionately rejects candidates from a particular ethnic group. From an ethics standpoint, what type of bias is most likely present?

Answer: Algorithmic bias

Algorithmic bias occurs when automated systems produce systematically prejudiced results due to flawed assumptions, biased training data, or discriminatory design.

The principle of data sovereignty most directly refers to:

Answer: The right of individuals and nations to control data about themselves

Data sovereignty asserts that data is subject to the laws and governance structures of the nation or individual from whom it originates.

A hospital shares patient data with a pharmaceutical company for research under a data use agreement. Which condition is ethically MOST important to include?

Answer: A prohibition on using the data for any commercial purpose beyond the stated research

Ethical data use agreements must strictly limit secondary uses to prevent exploitation of patient data beyond the consented purpose.

What is the primary ethical concern with 'surveillance capitalism'?

Answer: The commodification of personal behavioral data to predict and influence behavior for profit

Surveillance capitalism, coined by Shoshana Zuboff, describes business models that extract personal data as a raw material to predict and modify human behavior for commercial gain.

A company's privacy notice states it will not sell user data, but it shares data with third-party 'partners' for advertising purposes. This practice most closely exemplifies:

Answer: Dark patterns

Dark patterns in privacy involve designing disclosures or interfaces that deceive users into believing their data is protected when it is actually being exploited.

Which concept requires organizations to be able to demonstrate compliance with data protection principles, not merely assert it?

Answer: Accountability

The accountability principle, emphasized in the GDPR, shifts the burden to organizations to actively document and prove that their data practices comply with applicable standards.

An ethics officer discovers that employee monitoring software captures personal communications made on company devices during lunch breaks. The ethical tension here is primarily between:

Answer: Employer property rights and employee privacy expectations

Workplace monitoring raises a core ethical conflict between the employer's legitimate interest in device use and the employee's reasonable expectation of some personal privacy.